


the librarian's assistant

by nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-10-31 01:43:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10889151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare/pseuds/nezumiprefersdanielleovershakespeare
Summary: There's no way to give a decent summary of this without spoilers, so here's the brief version:After attending the same grade school but never speaking, Shion and Nezumi meet in college, where Nezumi is the librarian's assistant and Shion finds himself frequenting the library for more reasons than the books. The start of their relationship is easy and incredible, in a way that doesn't seem able to last...Preview:As Shion was leaving, he stopped at Nezumi’s doorway, where Nezumi had followed him. The roommate had fallen onto his bed, and an arm dangled off. Shion stared at his arm from the doorway, the way his fingers nearly touched the floor.“Shion,” Nezumi said, and Shion looked up, wondered if Nezumi would kiss him again, waited with his heart in his lips, ready to offer it to this man.But Nezumi only smiled, a small smile, not amused or smirking but just happy, if a bit tentative. The side of his face was illuminated now by the light of the television screen.“Goodnight,” he whispered, and Shion thought maybe this small smile lit up by the light of the television screen was even better than a kiss.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote and posted this fic in March, 2016, and I'll be reposting it one chapter every day (even though clearly it's already completed). I'm reposting some of my old fics from the many accounts I previously deleted over the past few years, so if you're familiar with my fics and want to request that I repost a certain old fave, feel free to message me at my tumblr: http://coolasamackerel.tumblr.com or comment on this post: http://coolasamackerel.tumblr.com/post/160488980276/danielles-nezushifree-fics and I'll be happy to consider reposting it! For both my new readers and my old guys, hope you enjoy the fic!! :D

Everyone had known Nezumi.

            He was the kid whose whole family died in the fire. He hadn’t come to school for a week after that, and Shion remembered the way he would find himself looking over at the empty desk so often it became an unconscious habit.

            The other kids had talked about it a lot, while Nezumi was gone. No one had ever talked much about Nezumi before. He had always been quiet, and when Shion thought about it, he couldn’t remember ever hearing the boy speak before the fire. After the fire, he’d heard Nezumi speak only fleetingly, to teachers when they’d ask him a question, though they didn’t call on him very much.

            Shion had still found his gaze drawn to Nezumi’s desk after the boy returned.

            They had been in second grade. Now they were in college, freshman year, and Shion walked into the library to see Nezumi shelving books from a cart. Shion had never spoken to Nezumi – the latter had transferred to another school in middle school, and Shion hadn’t had the courage to approach him before that.

            He didn’t know why he’d been scared of Nezumi. Everyone had been scared of Nezumi. Shion guessed there was something frightening about a boy who’d lost everything and everyone, but he couldn’t think of why that should be.

            Shion’s infatuation with the boy – a man now – returned instantaneously and undeniably the moment Shion saw him. He tightened his hands around the straps of his backpack, watching Nezumi pick up another book from the cart and slip it between two others on the shelf.

            His hair was longer, weaved into a braid over his shoulder. He was very beautiful, Shion thought. He had gotten taller, too. Grown into his limbs, was no longer small and fragile looking as he’d been as a child.

            Shion wondered if Nezumi would remember him. There was no reason to, since they’d never spoken. Only shared classrooms, sat desks away from each other, passed each other in the hallway, but never made eye contact.

            Nezumi had always walked with his eyes resolutely ahead.

            It was easy, to fall into the act of watching Nezumi again, as Shion had as a child. Shion sat a few tables away from the shelf where Nezumi stood. He watched Nezumi lift his hand, tuck his bangs behind his ear.

            Nezumi wore black jeans and a white t-shirt. Black boots, the right with untied laces. The blades of his shoulders shifted the fabric of his t-shirt as he moved, and Shion felt something he hadn’t as a child.

            He chewed on the end of his pencil and contemplated his attraction to the other man.

            It wasn’t surprising. Nezumi was definitely attractive. Desire, if anything, was an expected response. Rational. Unsurprising.

            The thick waves of heat that had been flashing up through his body since sighting the man again were not so easy to explain.

            Shion did not open a textbook until the cart of books was empty. Only then did Nezumi walk away, out of Shion’s view, and only then did Shion feel as though he could breathe fully again.

            His palms were sweating as he slid a textbook towards him.

*

It was the first day of sunshine after a week of rain, and Nezumi sat on the edge of the courtyard fountain, his hair a loose sheen over his shoulder and his knee cocked, a book rested open against it.

            Shion stopped walking on sighting him, then continued, slower.

            He felt as though he could taste his heartbeat.

            Many students were scattered along the grass, or sat against the fountain near Nezumi. Some sat alone, listening to music or doing work. Others chattered loudly, their laughter catching in the wind. No one seemed to be looking at Nezumi, and this surprised Shion.

            Couldn’t they see him? How beautiful he was? Did they not feel compelled to watch him, as Shion did? Why was Shion the only one with such an undeniable need?

            Nezumi turned a page of his book. The wind picked up, tossed his hair over his face, and he reached up, ran a hand through his bangs to pull them out of his eyes, and continued reading with his fingers strung through the dark of his hair.

            He had a hair tie around one wrist, but didn’t use it. He wore jeans and a black sweater that was big for him, swallowed him but for his arms, as he’d shoved the sleeves up to his elbows. He turned another page.

            Shion was taking minute steps now, hardly moving. He did not know if he wanted Nezumi to look up and see him. He did not know if he would be recognized. He did not know if he could stand not being recognized.

            Feet away from the fountain, Shion sat on a patch of grass. He shrugged his backpack off, took out his laptop, opened it, but didn’t bother starting any assignments.

            He watched Nezumi until it became chilly. Nezumi did not seem to notice the chill, did not roll down his sleeves. He only moved when the sun set. Most students had left the square, but there were a few still among Shion.

            Nezumi looked at none of them as he stood, closing his book, and stretched. He walked away, and Shion watched him, swallowing the shout of Nezumi’s name that almost climbed out from the ridges of his throat.

*

Shion saw Nezumi twenty-one more times before simply watching him was not enough.

            Shion was in the library, as he often was, as Nezumi worked there. When Nezumi wasn’t working, he was usually reading, and as it got colder, this increasingly took place in the library as well.

            Today, Nezumi was working. Shelving books again, and this time, Shion walked into the aisle of shelves where Nezumi stood. Shion pretended to look at the spines of the books in front of him. He traced his finger over them. His hands tingled oddly. He felt hot and ridiculous, with his hammering heart.

            When he looked away from the books to peek at Nezumi, Nezumi was looking at him, and Shion felt his stomach drop quite abruptly.

            “Hi,” Shion said, too quickly.

            Nezumi’s eyes were a brilliant grey. They were very steady.

            “Hey,” Nezumi said, after a moment, slowly. His eyes narrowed the slightest bit.

            Shion swallowed. “We went to elementary school together. And a little of middle school, before you transferred,” he explained, as if this could suffice as an explanation.

            Nezumi reacted in no way at all, but to say, “I know.”

            Shion had not expected this. His relief was a rush through his body. “I’m Shion,” he said, in the exhale of the breath he’d been holding.

            “I know,” Nezumi said again, and Shion was even more taken aback.

            “You do?” he asked, without thinking.

            Nezumi reached up, tucked his hair behind his ears. It was loose around his shoulders today. His fingers were long and his skin incredibly pale.

            “Do you need help?” Nezumi asked, and the question was so strange Shion could only stare at the man for a moment before clumsily voicing his confusion.

            “What? Help?” he asked, eyebrows knitting together.

            “To find a book,” Nezumi explained, calmly, as if to a child who could not remember the next letter of the alphabet they were meant to be reciting.

            Shion blinked. This was an excuse, he realized. Nezumi was giving him an excuse for coming up and talking to him with seemingly no purpose at all.

            “Yes,” Shion agreed – blurted – and for the first time, Nezumi’s expression shifted.

            Just his lips, and only slightly, hardly noticeably. They shifted up, a flinch if anything, before his features were smooth again.

            “Which book, Shion?” he prompted, patiently, and Shion thought about how this was the first time he’d ever heard Nezumi say his name, thought about how he would remember this moment, wondered why such a silly moment – hardly a moment at all – should be so momentous anyway.

            “Um.” Shion could not think of the name of any book. At that moment, all literature escaped him. Any title, any topic, even, would do, but Shion could think of nothing but the grey of Nezumi’s eyes, how lovely they were, when they looked back at him.

            “Would you like a suggestion?” Nezumi asked.

            “Yes,” Shion breathed, relieved again – and again, the flinch of Nezumi’s lips.

            Nezumi looked away from him, but only briefly. The slip of his eyes fell to his cart of books, and then they were raising again, as was Nezumi’s hand, offering a book he’d chosen.

            “ _Moby Dick_ ,” he said, as Shion took the book without looking at it.

            His fingers did not touch Nezumi’s. He still held his breath, squeezed his fingers over the worn paperback.

            He’d heard of _Moby Dick_ before, of course. The classic about whale hunters versus a giant whale. It was not a romance. It could not in any way be some secret message.

            But Shion instantly knew that he would read it searching for a line that would explain the thoughts of this man who watched him still, with those lovely eyes.

            “Thank you,” Shion said, a beat late, having forgotten and remembering abruptly.

            “Is there anything else I can help you with, Shion?” Nezumi asked, and Shion knew he wanted so many things from this man, but at that moment he could think of none.

            What was it he longed for so badly? What was it he craved so hard his chest ached?

            “I don’t think so,” Shion managed, doubtfully.

            Nezumi nodded, and Shion knew he had to leave, so he turned and walked and didn’t look back until he was out of the library and halfway to his dorm, realizing he’d forgotten to check out the book he grasped too tightly in his hand.  

            He didn’t go back.

*

“I read it,” Shion said, and Nezumi looked up.

            He was wearing a blue button-down today, with the sleeves rolled up. He was manning the front desk, and his face glowed in the light of the computer screen.

            “ _Moby Dick_ ,” Shion reminded, feeling his face flush when Nezumi simply continued to stare at him without comment.

            “I know,” Nezumi said, and Shion smiled without thinking.

            He lifted the book and offered it to Nezumi. “I came to return it,” he said, even though he hadn’t.

            He’d come to talk to Nezumi, obviously. He wondered if Nezumi knew this.

            Nezumi took the book, held it under the scanner.

            “You don’t have to do that,” Shion blurted.

            Nezumi glanced at him, raised his eyebrows.

            “I never checked it out.”

            Nezumi continued to look at him skeptically, but he lowered the book to the desk, beside his keyboard. “You never checked out the book you took home,” he said, a statement more than a question, but Shion chose to answer him anyway.

            “No. I just left with it,” he explained.

            “That’s not how libraries work,” Nezumi said, slowly.

            “Yes. I know that.”

            “Just a rule breaker, then?” Nezumi asked, and his lips twitched again.

            Shion bit the inside of his cheek briefly. “No. I forgot.”

            “Forgot?”

            “To check it out. The book. I forgot,” Shion explained, and Nezumi narrowed his eyes as if Shion was fine print he was trying to make out.

            “I see,” he said, stretching out the words.

            “Am I in trouble?” Shion asked, the thought occurring to him for the first time.

            “For accidentally stealing a book and then returning it? I think we can let that slide, don’t you?” Nezumi asked.

            Shion smiled and nodded.

            “You probably shouldn’t forget again, though,” Nezumi added, and Shion laughed.

            “I won’t.”

            “There’s a slot, you know.”

            Shion stood for a moment, waiting for the words to make sense, and when they didn’t, he asked hesitantly, “What?”

            “To return your books. There’s a slot at the end of this desk. You can just drop them in there, you don’t have to hand them to me,” Nezumi explained, leaning closer, and Shion found himself leaning closer as well.

            He could see a square of white light reflected in each of Nezumi’s eyes from his computer screen.

            _I wanted to talk to you,_ Shion thought, but he didn’t say it because it was too obvious to be said.

            He was certain Nezumi knew this.

            “Okay,” Shion said instead, knowing he would not use this slot.

            If Nezumi was not at the front desk, Shion would return his book another day.

            “Are you getting another book?” Nezumi asked, and he was lowering his voice, so Shion did not have a choice but to lean closer, his elbows digging into the sides of the counter.

            “Yes,” Shion agreed, because that was what one did in libraries.

            “But you don’t know what book.”

            “I need a suggestion,” Shion said. He wondered how many times Nezumi had this conversation a day. There was nothing special in the words they were exchanging, and why should there be?

            They were practically strangers. Nezumi had said Shion’s name once, but that was it, and maybe that had only been in Shion’s imagination.

            Nezumi did not seem at all surprised by Shion’s request. He ripped a piece of paper from a notebook beside him, scrawled something onto it, then held it out to Shion.

            There was a small collection of numbers and letters on it.

            “This one. It’s on the fourth shelf on the left,” Nezumi replied, as Shion took the paper between the tips of his thumb and forefinger.

            He stared at Nezumi’s hand, found the simplest of his movements so lovely.

            “Thank you,” Shion said, and he stepped backwards once before turning, looking up to count the shelves on his left as he walked.

            He felt Nezumi’s eyes on his back, but he also felt a bit dizzy, so he didn’t know whether or not his feelings could be trusted.

            Even so, it was a relief to step into the aisle, into the safety of the shelves that blocked Nezumi’s view of him. He breathed deeply with his eyes closed for half a minute before looking at the paper Nezumi had given him.

            The handwriting was skinny and slanted, reminding Shion of italics. Nezumi’s letters and numbers cramped together. Shion compared them to the number on the spine of the book in front of him, then walked slowly, following the progression of codes until he fell upon the one that matched Nezumi’s recommendation.

            He used his forefinger to pull it out.

            _The Little Prince._

            It looked like a children’s book. Shion flipped through it to see illustrations, then closed it, turned it around, and double-checked the code.

            It was correct. He felt something like dread. Why would Nezumi recommend a book like this? What was he trying to say?

            Shion did not want to return to the front desk. Instead, he opened the book, began reading, his eyes slipping over the words as he realized after a page or so that this was not prose for a child.

            He turned back to the beginning, started again, slowly, this time concentrating.

            He was pages in, having forgotten Nezumi completely – a first, since seeing the man again – when he heard a quiet voice behind him, and jumped.

            “Do you have some aversion to checking out books?”

            “Oh!” Shion exclaimed, as he jumped, shutting the book immediately as if he’d been reading something indecent. He looked up to see Nezumi beside him.

            Nezumi’s collarbones pushed against his skin. Shion forced himself to look up to Nezumi’s face.

            “What?” he asked, as he knew Nezumi had said something, but Shion had hardly heard it.

            His heart was racing again, as it did around Nezumi. It had become easy to ignore, to hardly notice.

            “The first book you walked out with. This one you’re reading between shelves. Is there a reason you won’t check out the books you want to read like everyone else?”

            Shion glanced down at the book, looking for an excuse and finding none on its cover, then looked back at Nezumi. “I forgot,” he offered.

            “You’re very forgetful.”

            “Yes,” Shion agreed. Not usually, but with Nezumi, he forgot even to breathe sometimes, was so foolish as that.

            “Would you like to check out the book now?” Nezumi asked.

            Shion nodded.

            Nezumi turned and walked out the aisle, and after a moment, Shion followed him.

            Nezumi was wearing his boots again, and this time, both were tied. He walked with very long strides. Shion could see the nape of his neck, as his hair was pulled up into a ponytail that swayed as he walked.

            At the front desk, Shion slid the book to Nezumi, who scanned it, then scanned Shion’s student ID, which functioned as a library card.

            “Your eyes are brown in this,” Nezumi commented, looking at Shion’s ID after scanning it.

            Shion curled his fingers around the spine of his book.

            “The photographer used the red-eye eraser function. He thought his camera had malfunctioned.”

            At this, Nezumi looked up from the card, and a beat later he was laughing, a short laugh, but abrupt and louder than Shion had expected.

            He smiled back, uncertainly, happy to have made Nezumi laugh, liking the sound of it, the way it slipped into his ears and pooled warmly at the base of his abdomen.

            “See you next time, Shion,” Nezumi said, still smiling, his voice mixed with the edges of his laughter. He held out Shion’s ID, and Shion reached out, took it.

            “Yes,” he agreed, still dazed by the laugh, by the unexpectedness of Nezumi’s smile, by the way it changed his features completely, turned him into someone Shion felt as though he’d never met before.

            If Shion’s heart had beat fast before, it was nothing, nothing, nothing to now.

            Nezumi’s smile shifted into something like a smirk before Shion turned away, walked with careful steps out of the library, thinking as he reached the door that he could hear another faint laugh from the front desk, as though Nezumi was still thinking about him.

*

Four books later, Shion found himself late to class, running across the grounds so that he almost didn’t see Nezumi, walking in the opposite direction.

            Shion didn’t even have to think about changing his course, and soon he was beside Nezumi, out of breath, reaching out.

            He touched Nezumi’s arm, then realized this was the first time they’d ever touched, even though it was through the sleeve of Nezumi’s coat.

            Nezumi turned, his eyes widening marginally, a look of surprise that Shion had never seen over his features in all the times he’d talked to Nezumi in the library.

            “Hi,” Shion breathed, hunching over and resting his hands on his knees.

            “Hey,” Nezumi said, even his voice sounding bemused. “Were you running?”

            “I’m late to class,” Shion explained, standing up and wiping the back of his hand over his forehead.

            Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “So why aren’t you going to class?”

            Shion squinted. It was a rational question in theory, but made no sense to him.

            Why wouldn’t he have changed course? Why wouldn’t he have come straight to Nezumi?

            “Because I saw you,” he said, still out of breath, exhaling hard and adjusting his bookbag, which had slipped a bit as he’d run.

            Nezumi’s eyes widened just long enough for Shion to notice.

            “Where are you going?” Shion asked.

            Nezumi pointed over his shoulder. “To get milk.”

            “Can I come with you?”

            “You have class.”

            “Oh, right,” Shion said, confused, having forgotten even though they were surely just talking about it.

            Nezumi raised an eyebrow. “Where’s your class?”

            “Eisenberg Hall.”

            “How long?”

            “Until eleven,” Shion replied, happy to have the answers to Nezumi’s questions, thinking he could stand there answering anything Nezumi asked forever.

            “I’ll meet you outside the building at five past,” Nezumi said, and Shion opened his mouth before he realized this was not a question.

            This was a statement. A statement promising to meet Shion later, as if they were friends, as if they met up with each other often, as if it was no big deal, and Shion was so taken aback he could think of nothing to say.

            “Is that all right?” Nezumi asked, very slowly, lips turning up in amusement.

            Shion nodded numbly. “Yes,” he managed.

            “You should go to class now,” Nezumi suggested, and Shion nodded again.

            “Right,” he said, still dazed, then snapped out of his shock when Nezumi’s words registered. “Oh, yeah, you’re right, okay, bye!” he shouted, turning and running again, this time certain he was running ten times faster than before, as if the quicker he got to class, the quicker it would end, and the quicker he could find Nezumi, waiting for him.

*

They were not friends.

            Or, more accurately, they were not _just_ friends.

            This was established five days after Shion found Nezumi waiting for him after class as promised. They’d seen each other outside the setting of the library every day since then, and on the fifth day, they were watching a movie in Nezumi’s dorm, sitting on his bed with their backs against the wall and their shoulders nearly touching.

            “It’s getting late,” Shion said, because it was two in the morning. It was a Saturday, but Shion still never usually stayed up past midnight. He had five texts from Safu that he hadn’t answered because he thought maybe if he didn’t move, time would stand still.

            “Mm hm,” Nezumi agreed, and Shion looked at him, and then Shion leaned forward and kissed him, and Nezumi stayed very still for a long moment before returning the pressure.

            They kissed for two minutes more – long enough for Nezumi’s hand to find the back of Shion’s neck and slip up into his hair, long enough for Shion’s fingers to curl around the hem of Nezumi’s t-shirt, long enough for Nezumi’s other hand to fall onto Shion’s knee and rise up to his thigh, long enough for Shion’s breath to shallow, long enough for both their lips to open against each other, long enough for their breaths to mix together – when Nezumi’s door slammed open, and they jerked apart to see Nezumi’s roommate stagger in, drunk.

            Shion stared at the roommate whom he’d met once before. He felt his heartbeat in his lips. His skin was incredibly warm.

            “Hey,” the roommate slurred, pulling off his t-shirt and momentarily getting stuck in it.

            Shion and Nezumi both watched him struggle in silence for a minute before he succeeded in pulling the shirt off and throwing it onto the floor.

            Shion turned to Nezumi, the man he’d just kissed, the man who’d just kissed him back. Nezumi’s hands were no longer in Shion’s hair or on Shion’s thigh.

            “I should go,” Shion said, a whisper, as if the roommate hadn’t seen him, didn’t know he was there.

            Nezumi said nothing for a few seconds, then nodded. His eyes were bright, flickered in the light of the television screen where the movie still played. They hardly looked grey in this light, but a combination of colors, changing constantly. They did not move from Shion’s gaze.

            Shion swallowed. Licked his lips and realized this was the taste of Nezumi. Sweet, maybe, or maybe that was just his imagination.

            As Shion was leaving, he stopped at Nezumi’s doorway, where Nezumi had followed him. The roommate had fallen onto his bed, and an arm dangled off. Shion stared at his arm from the doorway, the way his fingers nearly touched the floor.

            “Shion,” Nezumi said, and Shion looked up, wondered if Nezumi would kiss him again, waited with his heart in his lips, ready to offer it to this man.

            But Nezumi only smiled, a small smile, not amused or smirking but just happy, if a bit tentative. The side of his face was illuminated now by the light of the television screen.

            “Goodnight,” he whispered, and Shion thought maybe this small smile lit up by the light of the television screen was even better than a kiss.

*

They didn’t hold hands in the courtyard, but they kissed with open lips and hot breaths.

            They didn’t text each other _Good morning,_ but they stayed up late reading until one would fall asleep against the other.

            They didn’t call each other terms of endearment, but sometimes Nezumi pressed his laughter into Shion’s sleeve, and sometimes Shion kissed Nezumi’s neck when they studied in the library.

            They didn’t say _I love you,_ but one time Shion opened his dorm room door in the middle of the night to the scattered knocks of Nezumi, whose face was paler than usual, and when he opened his lips, no sound came out. His grey eyes were wide, and he looked like the child Shion used to watch long, long ago.

            Shion knew Nezumi had nightmares, had often woken to the man’s thrashing, and that night he took Nezumi’s hand, led Nezumi to his bed, and curled around him, listening to Nezumi’s fast breaths even out. He pressed his lips to the nape of Nezumi’s neck and his heart to Nezumi’s back, wrapped his arms around the man, rested his palm against Nezumi’s chest, and felt their heartbeats fall into synch.

            He wondered, a loose thought before falling asleep – what were words, compared to this?

*

The weather warmed, and Shion felt a cool shadow cross over his face.

            He looked up, no longer having to squint into the sun, as Nezumi stood in its way.

            “Where are the sandwiches?” Shion asked, as Nezumi was empty-handed but for a paperback.

            Nezumi lowered himself onto the blanket Shion had spread out, as had many other students around them in the courtyard. It was a beautiful day, could not be wasted inside, and Shion had been lying on his back reading yet another book Nezumi recommended.

            He’d lost count, by then, of how many books his librarian’s assistant had picked out for him.

            “Not here,” Nezumi replied, settling on his back perpendicular to Shion and resting the back of his head on Shion’s stomach.

            Shion leaned up on his elbows and stared down at the man.

            “I told you to bring us lunch! I’m starving!”

            “Shouldn’t my presence be enough to please you, Your Majesty?” Nezumi asked mildly, opening his book.

            “I haven’t eaten since eight this morning!” Shion protested.

            “That’s quite a long time ago,” Nezumi commented, not looking away from his book.

            “Yes, I know that!” Shion snapped, then laid back down and resumed reading, knowing arguing with Nezumi further was pointless and would only annoy him further.

            His arms soon became tired of lifting his book over his chest to read, and he placed it down.

            “Nezumi, you have to move, I need to change positions,” Shion said, leaning up onto his elbows again and seeing that Nezumi had also dropped his book. It rested against his chest, and his eyes were closed to the sky.

            Shion reached out, moved a few strands of dark bangs away from Nezumi’s face, looked at him for a moment more, then laid back down and closed his eyes as well.

            He wondered, not for the first time, if this was the kind of happiness that could only be fleeting.

*


	2. Chapter 2

The summer was four weeks away, and Shion thought he should probably bring it up.

            “Summer break is four weeks away,” he said, casually. He and Nezumi were in a convenience store looking for cupcake mix. Safu had just found out she’d gotten an internship at an incredibly competitive research site for the summer, and Shion wanted to have a small celebration for her.

            His mother would be ashamed that he was not making the cupcakes from scratch, but Shion had never inherited her baking skills.

            “Is it?” Nezumi said, not sounding as though he was listening at all, pulling a box of mac and cheese from a shelf and reading the back of it.

            “Yeah, have you thought about it?” Shion asked, taking the mac and cheese from Nezumi and putting it back on the shelf.

            “I was looking at that.”

            “You hate mac and cheese. Where are you going for summer break?”

            “Home,” Nezumi replied. He’d stayed at school for spring break even though Shion had asked him to come to his house. Shion knew Nezumi spent his breaks at a halfway house for former foster care kids who were over eighteen but couldn’t afford their own homes.

            “Come home with me.”

            Nezumi continued walking down the aisle, stopping in front of the baking section this time.

            “Vanilla or chocolate?”

            “Nezumi.”

            “What?” Nezumi sighed, glancing at Shion and combing his fingers through his bangs to pull them out of his eyes.

            “Why won’t you stay with me at my place? We have room. My mom wants to meet you anyway.”

            “I’ll visit you then. I have a summer job at home.”

            “You can get a summer job near me.”

            “Shion, don’t start this,” Nezumi sighed.

            “Start what?” Shion demanded.

            “I don’t want you to take me in. I don’t need your mother’s charity,” Nezumi said, and Shion could hear the edge of hardness to his voice, knew Nezumi was getting angry.

            “I’m not taking you in! I’m asking you, as my boyfriend, to stay with me for the summer,” Shion insisted, and Nezumi’s eyebrows raised.

            “Boyfriend?” he asked.

            “Yes, that’s what you are,” Shion replied, his own voice hard now.

            “Do you have to do this?” Nezumi said, exhaling roughly.

            “I’m not doing anything!”

            “You’re making a big deal out of nothing. Summer is what, three months? I think you can handle a few months without me, Your Majesty, you’re a big boy.”

            “It’s not about what I can handle or not! Why are you acting like I’m asking for something awful? I’m just suggesting you think about staying with me. You’re the one making a big deal out of it. You don’t always have to be so difficult. I want to spend time with you, that’s it, I’m not trying to make you commit to me or rely on me. I know you don’t depend on me for anything. I know you don’t need me. I know you’d be perfectly fine without me. I’m just happier when I’m with you, Nezumi, is that all right with you?” Shion snapped, but he didn’t wait for Nezumi’s answer, and turned around, leaving the store and not looking back.

            He got Safu pre-made cupcakes from a bakery off-campus, and when she asked where Nezumi was that night, he felt his eyes burn and blinked quickly, replying that Nezumi hadn’t been able to get the night off from work but he’d sent his congratulations.

            Shion could tell Safu knew he was lying, and he was immensely grateful that she only nodded and gave him perhaps an extra tight hug at the end of the night before he left.

            He didn’t expect Nezumi to be waiting for him outside his dorm room, but that didn’t stop his heart from sinking when he saw that the man was not there.

*

Shion woke the next morning and looked at his phone, but there was no text from Nezumi, so he turned on the volume, rolled over, and closed his eyes again.

            He tried to sleep, but only managed to toss and turn, waiting to hear the sound of a text notification.

            By three in the afternoon, there was still no notification, and Shion sat up, rubbed his eyes, and tapped out his own text.

            _Hi, I miss you._

            He sent it without thinking, and only after it sent did he realize he’d only just seen Nezumi the day before and had no reason to miss the man. But to Shion, it felt like weeks since he had seen Nezumi. He threw his phone onto his bed and stood up, stretching, then left his dorm room to the communal bathrooms, where he took a long shower, pretending he was not just stalling to give Nezumi more time to reply.

            He brushed his teeth, ate an apple, and dressed before checking his phone again, but there was no reply, and Shion stood next to his bed, staring down at his phone for several minutes before sighing and slipping it into his pocket.

            He grabbed his laptop and bookbag and left his dorm, making it halfway to the library before stopping and turning around, walking to Safu’s dorm instead. He texted her, asking if she wanted to do homework together, and she texted back immediately, agreeing.

            It wasn’t until that night when Shion, back in his dorm – still without word from Nezumi – realized it was the first day in months that he hadn’t been to the library at all, even if it was just to meet Nezumi after his shift at work.

            The thought was sudden and strange, and Shion lay on his back, missing the smooth spines of the books he’d trail his fingers along almost as much as the man who would walk through the shelves beside him.

*

Two days more of avoiding the library and the man he knew was inside of it passed until Shion, leaving Eisenberg Hall after his class ended at eleven, found Nezumi waiting for him. He was leaning against the side railing of the steps as he had been the first time he’d met Shion outside his class.

            Shion stopped on seeing Nezumi, then walked more slowly towards him, shoving his hands in his pockets as he realized he hadn’t gone so long without touching the man since spring break.

            “Hey,” Nezumi said.

            “You didn’t text me back.”

            “I’m here now.”

            “And that fixes everything?” Shion demanded.

            “Does something need to be fixed?” Nezumi asked, watching Shion carefully. There was more space between them than was normal.

            Nezumi’s hair was in a messy bun, as it was when he didn’t get much sleep. This was at the same time somewhat satisfying to Shion as it was worrying. He didn’t know if the lack of sleep was because of himself or Nezumi’s nightmares.

            “We had a fight,” Shion reminded, not that Nezumi could have forgotten.

            Nezumi looked up at the sky for a moment, then looked back at Shion. “What do you want me to do? Apologize?”

            “I want you to care!” Shion shouted.

            Nezumi looked at him blankly long enough for Shion to consider just walking away, but then his expression gave way to concern. “I’m sorry,” he said, softly.

            Shion swallowed hard, bit the inside of his cheek.

            Nezumi reached out, then pulled his hand back without touching Shion and tucked it into his pocket.

            “I didn’t mean to worry you, or make you think I don’t care about you. I needed time to think.”

            “About coming home with me for the summer?” Shion asked, hopeful, knowing how dangerous it was to be so hopeful all the same.

            He could see the clench of Nezumi’s jaw in the flinch of his pale skin.

            “I can’t spend the summer with you, Shion.”

            “Why not?”

            “I’m not ready for that,” Nezumi replied, and his expression was blank again.

            This was not an answer Shion expected, and he tried to understand the words.

            “It’s not a commitment. You’re not promising me anything.”

            “Of course it is.”

            Shion shook his head, confused. “Nezumi – ”

            “It’s a promise of more time,” Nezumi interrupted, and Shion narrowed his eyes.

            “You don’t want to be with me in the summer?” he asked, uncertain now about what Nezumi was thinking, what Nezumi was feeling, and he had no reason to be unsure about what Nezumi felt because Nezumi played with Shion’s hair gently in the mornings after they spent the nights together, because Nezumi sang to him one night when Shion’s mother was in the hospital with pneumonia and Shion couldn’t sleep out of worry, because Nezumi stayed up all night to help him study when Shion had three midterms in one day, because Nezumi told him in a whisper that he was beautiful one night when they were drunk, because Nezumi loved him, and Shion knew this, had always known this, it was never a doubt.

            The future was never a question, and the thought that Nezumi would be unwilling to promise Shion more time had never occurred to him.

            “This is simple to you, Shion, but it’s not simple to me. I wasn’t expecting you. I didn’t want you to come into my life. I never wanted to feel – ” Nezumi stopped, shook his head, exhaled sharply. He sounded almost angry. He pulled on his bangs and looked away from Shion.

            There was a loud peal of laughter from next to Shion, and he turned to see a group of girls walking past, talking to each other and giggling. He had forgotten they were in a public setting, but he was used to that – to forgetting everything else when he was with Nezumi.

            He looked back at Nezumi, felt his mouth go suddenly dry. “Do you think of knowing me as a bad thing? Do you wish we’d never met?” he asked, the thought occurring to him abruptly and overwhelmingly, like a punch in the gut.

            Nezumi looked up from the ground. “Sometimes,” he said, voice even, and Shion gritted his teeth to keep his expression from falling.

            His eyes were burning again, and he looked away from Nezumi, knowing Nezumi would notice anyway.

            “Okay,” he said, but he really only mouthed the word, not much sound managing to come out.

            It wasn’t okay, but Shion didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t know what to argue. He didn’t know what to ask.

            “I’m sorry, Shion,” Nezumi said, another apology, and wasn’t that what Shion had wanted?

            No, it wasn’t. He just wanted Nezumi, that was all, he just wanted to hear the man laugh, he just wanted to be the reason the man was laughing, he just wanted small smiles illuminated by flashing television screens in doorways, he just wanted the salty taste from the sweat on Nezumi’s skin, he just wanted the wind of Nezumi’s breaths in his hair, he just wanted the steady count of Nezumi’s voice in his ear as they danced in his cramped dorm room, he just wanted to go to the library and see this man shelving books only to look up and rest his grey eyes on him, find him again and again when Shion had never known he’d been lost.

            “Does that mean you hate me?” Shion asked, quietly, because he knew Nezumi loved him, but he didn’t know this.

            Nezumi was quiet, and Shion wondered for a moment if the man had walked away, but he didn’t dare look to see, and kept his eyes resolutely on a piece of trash blowing across the grounds beside Eisenberg Hall.

            “I don’t know,” Nezumi said, finally, and Shion hardly managed to nod, but then he felt the cool of Nezumi’s fingertips, tipping his chin.

            Shion looked at Nezumi, then, found the grey eyes heavy on his features.

            “I don’t want to hurt you. But I won’t lie to you.”

            Shion tried to nod again, couldn’t. Nezumi dropped his fingers from Shion’s chin.

            “You’ve changed me. Given me something I haven’t had in years. Something I never wanted again because it hurts to lose it, Shion, you wouldn’t understand what loss is like. And I don’t want you to understand, I don’t. I just – I won’t go through that again.”

            Shion knew, of course, what Nezumi was talking about. Everyone knew.

            Nezumi was the kid whose whole family had died in the fire. Everyone had been scared of him, and so had Shion, without really knowing why.

            Now he did. Now he understood his fear of this man.

            He was terrified more than anything of Nezumi doing to him what had been done to Nezumi. Of taking those he loved away from him. Of making him lonely, of making him lost. Of breaking him.

            “I’m not going to leave you,” Shion said.

            “You don’t know that,” Nezumi replied, almost sharply, and Shion regretted his words.

            He wondered if Nezumi thought about him dying. If Nezumi ever had nightmares where Shion was the one Nezumi had to survive without. If Nezumi was ever referring to Shion, when he whispered, _Come back_ , in his sleep.

            “So what do you want me to do? Tell me, what can I do?” Shion asked.

            Nezumi curled his shoulders forward as if bracing himself from a breeze that wasn’t there. “Nothing. You can’t do anything, Shion,” he said, and then he turned, walked down the rest of the stairs, and didn’t stop.

            Shion tilted his face up to the sky, felt the sun on it, how strange it was to feel warmth in the absence of this man. He thought of the first time he’d met Nezumi on these steps.

            He had not known it was possible, to fall in love so hard, so deeply.

            He had not known how easy it would be, for someone to give him happiness and take it away like it was something that could be held, something that could be lost.

            He had not known how little he would care to hold onto his heart, how much he would rather give it away, if only Nezumi would want it.

*

It would have been easy to see Nezumi again. He would be in the library, and Shion knew this, but stayed away.

            He wanted to see Nezumi, but more than that, he wanted Nezumi to want to see him.

            Instead of getting distracted from his work, Shion threw himself into it. There was so much time without Nezumi to fill the days, and Shion didn’t know what to do with it. Finished his essays early, studied for tests a week in advance, read his textbooks until late into the nights because he’d begun finding it hard to sleep.

            He saw Nezumi twice, during this time, but both times, Nezumi did not see him.

            The first was coming back from Safu’s late one night. Shion didn’t want to go back to his dorm just yet, knowing he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, and walked a block off campus to the road with shops and restaurants. It was lighter here, lined with streetlamps, so Nezumi was easy to see, unmistakable, leaving a bar.

            Shion stopped, pressed his back against the Chinese restaurant he’d been passing, but Nezumi was not paying attention to him. His usually graceful movements were jerky, clumsy, and Shion realized Nezumi was drunk.

            Shion watched as Nezumi passed him, then Shion walked after him, slowing his steps to match Nezumi’s. He followed Nezumi all the way home, making sure he got back safely without Nezumi knowing, and only then did Shion go back to his own dorm.

            The second time Shion saw Nezumi was on the way to class. Nezumi was sitting on the fountain again, had a book in his lap, but he wasn’t looking at it. He was staring straight ahead, and Shion stopped to watch him, ended up missing his class because he refused to move until he saw Nezumi look down at his book.

            The man never did. It was late, when Nezumi finally closed the book he hadn’t even glanced at and stood up, walking in the direction of his dorm.

            Shion stood up, as he’d sat on the grass after the first twenty minutes, and walked in the opposite direction to his own dorm.

            Knowing that Nezumi was unhappy gave Shion no satisfaction. It was not what he wanted. But Shion didn’t know if he would be able to stand seeing Nezumi happy, if such a feeling came in his absence.

            He’d never known such selfishness before, and realized that as much as Nezumi claimed Shion had changed him, Nezumi had changed Shion right back.

            After all of this change, Shion wasn’t sure how they were supposed to manage being on their own again.

*

“But did you break up?” Safu asked, and Shion stared at her, realizing he didn’t know the answer.

            He didn’t think they’d broken up, but he hadn’t spoken to Nezumi in two and a half weeks. There was only a week and a half left of school, but he was trying not to think about that.

            “I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “Maybe,” he added.

            “I’d figure that out if I were you,” Safu advised, and Shion agreed with her, left her with her permission at the pizza place where they’d been having a late lunch, and ran to the library.

            He arrived out of breath, and stood outside the doors for a moment, composing himself, knowing the moment his heartbeat slowed it would only quicken again.

            Once he was breathing evenly, he opened the doors, let himself into the familiar building.

            Nezumi was not at the front desk, and so Shion searched the shelves, starting on the left and weaving through them, crossing to the right, then heading to the back room that was quiet and usually empty.

            Here, he found Nezumi in the middle of an aisle, tracing a forefinger over the spines of a row of books before settling on one and pulling it out.

            “Nezumi,” Shion said, and Nezumi turned.

            Not for the first time, Shion noted that the man was beautiful. He wore a grey tank and had his black hoodie tied around his waist. Shion traced his gaze along the muscles of Nezumi’s arms, thinking of how he would run his fingers up the slight contours of them when Nezumi hovered over him, using them to support himself.

            Shion liked to wear Nezumi’s black hoodie. It smelled like him, was too big over Shion’s body, felt as though it held traces of Nezumi’s warmth in its fibers.

            “What book did you pick?” Shion asked, to bring himself back to the present. Nobody got books from the back section. Shion wasn’t even sure what kind of books they were.

            “It’s not for me. Someone put it on hold, I have to keep it at the front desk.”

            “Oh.”

            Nezumi rose a hand, went through the motions of tucking his bangs behind his ear, but the motion was only a habit as his bangs had already been clipped back haphazardly. His hair was in a messy bun again.

            “I came here to…” Shion started, but he didn’t know how to finish.

            He came here to talk to Nezumi because that was what he’d always done, but Nezumi must have always known that, it must have always been obvious how Shion felt about him.

            “I miss you,” he said, instead of finishing his first attempt, and this time he had a good excuse to say such a thing as it had been long since he’d talked to Nezumi, twenty days since he’d talked to Nezumi, and yes, he was keeping count, of course he was, how could he not?

            Nezumi looked lost. His eyes seemed wider than usual, maybe because they weren’t at all hidden by the sweep of his bangs. They were a darker grey, closer to black, but that was only because the lighting was not bright in this part of the library.

            “This is the best I can do right now,” Nezumi said, and his voice was steady but for the break at the end that he almost covered by clearing his throat.

            “You would rather be alone than take a chance?” Shion asked.

            Nezumi shook his head, looked away. “You should go.”

            “You’re not just a boy I met in college, Nezumi. I waited for you. Since we were kids, I waited for you, and now you want me to let go? Because you’re scared? I’m scared too. It’s a rational response, to fear trusting someone not to hurt you, but you can’t just run from it. You have to try,” Shion insisted, and Nezumi looked at him now, blankly.           

            “I’m not going to tell you what you want to hear, Shion. You can stand there and keep spewing your bullshit, but it won’t change anything, it’ll just waste both of our time,” Nezumi replied coolly, and Shion couldn’t have disagreed more.

            Wasting their time?

            Shion had too much time. He wanted to waste it. He had become so accustomed to giving his time to Nezumi, he did not know what to do with it when he had to use it all on his own.

            Shion closed his eyes. Tried to think of a solution, even if it was only temporary, only gave him a little more time to waste with this man –

            “I understand why you’re worried, but there is one and a half more weeks of school. Can’t we have them? Ten more days?” Shion asked, and they would not be enough, of course they wouldn’t, but this moment was not enough either, and Shion would do anything to make it longer, to waste as much time as he could.

            Nezumi stared at him as if he were crazy. “You want ten more days? What’s the point of that?”

            “I already told you that being with you makes me happier. I get ten more days of being happier. Why wouldn’t I want that?” Shion asked, and Nezumi narrowed his eyes, but Shion could tell he was thinking it over.

            “That’s one of the stupidest ideas you’ve had, Shion.”

            “Come to my dorm after work. When is your shift over?” Shion asked.

            Nezumi sighed. “Eleven.”

            “I’ll be up. I’ll leave the door unlocked. I’ll wait for you, Nezumi – Will you come?”

            _Will you give me more time to waste with you?_

            Nezumi raised his hand again, made the same motion to tuck his bangs behind his ears again, and again did not even seem to notice his actions nor how unnecessary they were. “Okay,” he said, finally, and Shion smiled for the first time in days.

            “Okay. I’ll see you soon,” he said, and when he walked away, he looked down at his watch.

            Eight more hours. It felt like nothing, compared to how long he’d already waited.

*

At midnight, Shion stopped pacing and collapsed onto his bed.

            Nezumi wasn’t coming. Shion curled his hand around his pillow, squeezed his fingers into fists. He should have stayed at the library. He should not have let the man out of his sight.

            As he was contemplating going to Nezumi’s dorm, his door slammed open, and Nezumi stumbled in, his smell preceding his body.

            “Ow,” Nezumi moaned, having walked into the corner of Shion’s desk, and he winced and stumbled, rubbing his leg.

            Shion got up quickly, reached around Nezumi to close the door behind him before grabbing Nezumi’s arm, guiding him to the bed.

            “You got drunk before you came here?” he chastised, pushing Nezumi’s hair out from his eyes, as Nezumi had taken out the clips and undone his bun.

            “Shion,” Nezumi said, smiling sloppily, reaching up and tangling his fingers in Shion’s hair.

            “Unbelievable,” Shion muttered, but he didn’t altogether mind, was more relieved than anything that Nezumi had come, never mind that he was plastered, never mind that he was worrying Shion.

            Nezumi giggled in a breathy way that grew into louder laughter, bouncing off Shion’s walls, and Shion pressed a hand to Nezumi’s lips, feeling the moist heat of his laughter fill the creases of his palms.

            “Shh, it’s too late to be so loud, we’ll get complaints,” Shion said softly, lifting his hand to release a few more soft giggles.

            “Shion,” Nezumi said again, stretching his name into several more syllables than it could hold.

            “Yes, hi, Nezumi. You should get undressed, time for you to go to bed,” Shion said.

            Drunk Nezumi was dangerous. Sloppy, clumsy, laughed too loudly. Cheerful at first, and uncharacteristically affectionate, but when he got too drunk he was in danger of becoming sad. Of thinking of his past, of letting himself remember what he never thought about sober.

            “Let’s do it,” Nezumi slurred, grabbing at Shion’s clothes, and Shion played along, thinking this was as good a technique as any to get Nezumi undressed. He was pretty sure the man had spilled alcohol over himself, as he was wet and smelled stronger than the inside of a bar.

            “Sure, Nezumi,” Shion agreed, stripping off his own t-shirt obediently and letting Nezumi’s hands travel sloppily over his skin as he pulled off Nezumi’s tank top. He untied Nezumi’s hoodie from around his waist, oddly sad that it would now smell of alcohol over anything else, then undid Nezumi’s zipper.

            “You first,” Nezumi complained, hands on Shion’s belt loops, so Shion batted his fingers away, stood up to peel off his own jeans, then returned to Nezumi’s and pulled them over his long legs.

            He’d forgotten to take off the man’s boots, and had to untie them and yank them off before he could slip the jeans off completely.

            Nezumi laid still on his back now, arms splayed over his head and hair a messy black halo. Shion looked down at him for a moment, noting again his beauty.

            But for as muscular as the man was, right then he only seemed delicate, and Shion almost feared to touch him.

            “Come here,” Nezumi said, quietly, voice like a child’s.

            Shion crept onto the bed and hovered over Nezumi on his knees. He leaned down, kissed Nezumi very carefully, then sat back up.

            Nezumi tasted bitter, like vodka.

            Nezumi’s fingers played with the fabric of Shion’s boxers.

            “I’m tired,” he whispered.

            “Okay,” Shion said.

            “I missed you.”

            “I know.”

            “Shion,” Nezumi said, and this time his eyes focused.

            Shion leaned forward, combed back Nezumi’s bangs, slid his palm over Nezumi’s cheek. “Shh, let’s go to sleep.”

            “I’d rather be alone than lonely,” Nezumi said, hiccupping once between his words, and Shion froze, leaned closer to him.

            “What?”

            “You asked if I’d rather be alone than take a chance,” Nezumi whispered, closing his eyes. Water leaked out from one of them, and Shion caught the tear with a finger.

            Nezumi’s breaths were shallow. Shion leaned over Nezumi until their foreheads touched, and with each breath Nezumi exhaled, Shion inhaled the smell of alcohol.

            “I’d rather be alone than be lonely,” Nezumi said again, the words mixed with however many drinks he’d downed.

            He didn’t even have a fake ID. He was beautiful, could trick the bouncer into letting him in, and people bought him drinks, hoping he’d go home with them.

            “Nezumi,” Shion breathed. He kissed Nezumi, only so that Nezumi wouldn’t speak any more, but he hated the taste of Nezumi’s lips, broke away, slid onto his side and wrapped an arm over Nezumi’s chest. “Turn around, Nezumi. Sleep on your side,” Shion goaded, pulling at the man’s waist, and he managed to turn Nezumi so that Nezumi faced him.

            Nezumi’s hair fell over his eyes, and Shion did not move it.

            “I didn’t think it’d be like this,” Nezumi said.

            “Shh, that’s okay, don’t say anything else,” Shion replied.    

            “Being happy. I didn’t think it was like this. I didn’t think it would feel this warm,” Nezumi said, and Shion watched more trails of water streak over his face, over his nose now.

            “Why did you drink so much, Nezumi?” Shion asked, sadly. He could feel his heart breaking, the squeeze of it, the ache. He did not ask with intentions of being answered, but Nezumi responded anyway.

            “I didn’t want to remember anything I said to you,” Nezumi whispered, and Shion stared at him.

            “What?”

            “I didn’t want to make any more memories of you. I don’t want to miss anything else about you,” he mumbled, and his eyes were closed now, his eyelashes getting wet.

            “Go to sleep,” Shion said softly, fighting to keep his voice even.

            “I want to forget tonight,” Nezumi slurred, slowly, his voice getting heavier with each word.

            Shion touched Nezumi’s lips with his fingers. Felt the quickness of Nezumi’s breaths, and then the movement of Nezumi’s lips when he opened them again.

            “I want to forget you, Shion,” Nezumi breathed, and Shion felt as though his own breath was sucked from his lungs.

            His chest constricted. He tried to swallow and could not. He took his fingers from Nezumi’s lips, and the tips of them were burning.

            Shion was fine, forgetting everything else when Nezumi was around.

            But to forget Nezumi – the idea was so paralyzing Shion could hardly think about it.

            He could understand, on a logical level, why Nezumi would want to forget him.

            But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. That didn’t make it any easier to breathe. That didn’t make Shion any less terrified that this man he loved so much would shatter him, by the end of their last ten days.

*

Shion thought Nezumi left the next morning until he found the man vomiting in one of the communal bathroom sinks.

            He hurried to Nezumi, pulled his dark locks out of his face.

            “It’s okay,” Shion said, holding Nezumi’s hair with one hand and rubbing the other over Nezumi’s back.

            Nezumi hadn’t pulled on a t-shirt, and Shion felt the ridges of Nezumi’s burns flicker like lightning over the skin of his palm as he moved his hand in small circles.

            Nezumi’s knuckles were white against the edge of the sink counter. When he vomited, he bent further over so that the pebbles of his spine strained against his skin.

            Shion leaned closer, pressed his lips to Nezumi’s shoulder.

            “It’s okay,” he said again, softly this time, any trace of his voice swallowed in the pale of Nezumi’s skin.

            “I – ” Nezumi started, but then his voice broke and he was heaving again.

            Shion clenched his teeth. He knew this would pass, knew it was nothing serious, but he hated the way Nezumi looked so fragile then, so breakable.

            This was not the way Nezumi should look. He should have been strong. Wasn’t he always saying he didn’t need anyone? Wasn’t he always saying he was fine on his own?

            “Shion,” Nezumi gasped, but Shion shushed him, and then Nezumi was tensing again.

            It was just a dry heave. They both waited a minute more before Shion offered Nezumi the toothbrush and toothpaste he’d brought to the bathroom for himself.

            Nezumi stood up warily, letting go of the sink as if he was certain he would fall without the tightness of his grip. He took Shion’s toothbrush, and Shion looked at Nezumi in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. He spit in the sink, and Shion took his toothbrush back, depositing in the trash as they left the bathroom.

            Back in Shion’s dorm room, Nezumi went straight for his clothes, pulling his shirt over his head with difficulty, his movements jerky.

            Shion watched him from the side of his bed.

            “We could get breakfast,” he offered.

            “I don’t think we should do this ten-day thing,” Nezumi replied, shortly.

            Shion ignored the drop of his stomach. “Because you got wasted? Since when did you have to get drunk to see me?” he demanded, angry at Nezumi for doing this to them, for wanting to forget him.

            “There’s no point in ten days. Nine now. Do you think it’s going to change my mind? Do you think it’ll make anything easier?” Nezumi asked, sounding tired.

            “I think it’ll give me more time with you,” Shion snapped.

            Nezumi sighed loudly, as though it was a burden to be loved.

            Maybe it was. It occurred to Shion for the first time how likely it was that it was not only Nezumi’s feelings that bothered him, but that Shion’s own feelings were a burden to Nezumi as well.

            “Is nine days really worth this, Shion? Arguing about nothing? We had fun, will you stop being so stubborn and let it end like that?” Nezumi asked, and Shion bristled at the terminology.

            “Had fun?” he asked, voice raising.

            Nezumi rubbed a hand over his face, pulling on his skin. “I didn’t mean that.”

            “This is because I asked you to stay with me in the summer. If I hadn’t asked, we’d be fine. Pretend I didn’t ask. Don’t come home with me. We can do long distance, you don’t even live that far from me, two hours is nothing.”

            “I don’t want to do this any longer,” Nezumi said, flatly.

            “I know that’s a lie.”

            “Oh, really? In that case, sure, Shion, I’ll come home with you, let’s live together in your house and bake pies with your mother and watch the sunset every night,” Nezumi replied.

            “We don’t watch sunsets here, why would we do that at my house?” Shion retorted.

            “I don’t want to argue about this.”

            “Oh, do you want to just ‘have fun’ then?” Shion asked, and the skin of Nezumi’s jaw flinched.

            “I told you I didn’t mean that.”

            “Then why did you say it?”

            “Dammit, Shion! I don’t know, I don’t know why I said it, I’m sorry, all right? I don’t want to argue with you, I don’t want to do this with you, pick apart everything. We didn’t have a lifetime together. We had a couple months, and I can’t do any more than that.”

            “So what, you move on to the next guy for a couple months until you can’t do him anymore?” Shion asked, hotly, hating the words as he said them, knowing completely this was not at all what Nezumi meant, not at all what Nezumi would do.

            Right?

            “Now you’re just being childish,” Nezumi replied, and Shion knew he was right, but he also knew it hurt, and didn’t that count?

            “Why did you even bother then? What was the point of talking to me? Of kissing me? Of any of this?”

            “The point was that I wanted it!” Nezumi shouted, hands in fists, and then he was quiet, suddenly and abruptly and the room felt empty without the ring of his voice. “I wanted to know what it was to be happy. I wanted you, Shion,” he said, hardly a voice at all now.

            This was worse than anything else. Shion would rather Nezumi had cursed him. Had insulted him. Had thrown a book at him and stomped out.

            How dare this man want him, and refuse to take him?

            Shion would be his. So easily. So happily.

            “I have to go,” Nezumi said, turning, grabbing his jeans from the floor, yanking them on.

            “Don’t,” Shion insisted, moving from beside the bed to the door, standing in front of it, knowing Nezumi could easily move him.

            Nezumi was shoving on his boots, not bothering to tie them, standing up and pulling his hair back.

            “Move.”

            “Nezumi.”

            “I don’t want to have to move you myself,” Nezumi said, in front of Shion now, so close Shion could kiss him.

            Shion reached out, touched Nezumi’s cheek, slid his palm up to rest along Nezumi’s profile.

            He could feel the clench and unclench of Nezumi’s jaw underneath his pale skin.    

            “Move me, then,” Shion said, softly.

            Nezumi just looked at Shion for a long minute, then sighed, cupped his hand over Shion’s.

            “You’ll be fine, Your Majesty,” he said gently, and then he was removing Shion’s hand from his face, sidestepping him so easily Shion wondered if he was even blocking the door in the first place, and leaving.

            Shion turned just in time to watch the quiet shut of the door.

*


	3. Chapter 3

The library was cool, a relief to the heat from outside. Summer had come swiftly and suddenly, was hitting hard even though there were still eight days until summer break.

            Shion should have been studying for finals, which started the next day. Even so, he’d left his backpack in his dorm.

            He was not going into the library to study, and he was not going to hide the real reason the way he used to, when he was only watching Nezumi from afar.

            Shion found Nezumi at a back table reading a textbook, and the sight was so strange he stopped to watch for a minute before walking forward and sitting across from him.

            Nezumi looked up, frowned.

            “Hi.”

            “You’re ridiculously irritating.”

            Shion flattened his palms over the table. “You’re studying.”

            “Was,” Nezumi corrected, leaning back in his chair, and Shion leaned forward, wished there wasn’t a table between them.

            “I’m proud of you.”

            Nezumi said nothing, and Shion tapped his fingertips on the table, trying to think of something to say, something to keep this man here, something to stop him from getting up and walking away from him again.

            “I haven’t been sleeping well,” he said, and it wasn’t what he’d intended, but there was a strange relief in telling Nezumi this.

            Nezumi narrowed his eyes. “Take sleeping pills.”

            Shion tilted his head, surprised at the suggestion. “You don’t take sleeping pills.”

            “I’m used to nightmares. You’re not.”

            “Why don’t you take sleeping pills? And I’m not having nightmares, I just can’t fall asleep.”

            “Then take pills, they’ll knock you out. You should get some sleep, finals are next week,” Nezumi said, not sounding at all like himself, and Shion squinted at him.

            “Why aren’t you answering me? Why don’t you take sleeping pills?”

            Nezumi exhaled loudly. “Tried them before, didn’t like them. They’ve got some at the convenient store for cheap, you should get them now.”

            “Why didn’t you like them? Did they not work for you?” Shion asked.

            Nezumi pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are aware I have no desire to speak with you, right?”

            “Is it your weird distrust of medicine? You’d rather stick to your stubborn superstitions than get a good night’s sleep?” Shion asked, and Nezumi closed his eyes, tight, then opened them.

            “Let’s make a deal then. You get to say three more things, and I’ll respond appropriately, and then you leave. All right?”

            “Why don’t you take sleeping pills? Did they not get rid of your nightmares?” Shion asked, not bothering to agree to any deal because he had no intention of only saying three more things, he had no intention of leaving whether Nezumi wanted him to or not.

            Nezumi looked away from him, down at the table. “They did get rid of them,” he replied, his voice toneless.

            Shion blinked. “Then why did you stop taking them?”

            “Because they got rid of my nightmares,” Nezumi repeated, looking back up, grey eyes steady and bright, and Shion was about to demand further explanation, but then he understood.

            “Oh,” he mumbled, and he realized that for as much as Nezumi could talk about keeping the past in the past, about the importance of forgetting, he needed his memories too, no matter what form they came in.

            “Any last desperate questions?” Nezumi asked, and Shion bit his lip.

            “Do you think you’ll have nightmares about me?” he said, and he did not expect Nezumi to answer, did not know why he bothered asking, maybe because he just wanted to talk to this man, say any words to this man, and those were the first that came to mind.

            Nezumi lifted a hand, rested his chin on his palm, did not look away from Shion.

            “I already do,” he said, like it wasn’t a big deal, but his eyes were heavy, and Shion realized how tired the man looked, more tired than usual.

            “I’m sorry,” Shion managed.

            “You need to leave now, as per our deal.”

            “I don’t want to leave.”

            “And why should you get what you want?” Nezumi countered, but he spoke tiredly.

            “For the entire summer, you’re getting what you want. Why shouldn’t I get what I want for the next week?” Shion retorted, and at this, Nezumi lifted his chin from his palm.

            “You’re so childish.”

            “You’re not working. Come to my place, you can study there,” Shion said, and Nezumi grimaced.

            “It’s so hard for you not to get what you want. Not to accept that you can’t always have that happy ending you’ve got stuck in your head. Sometimes you get hurt, Shion, sometimes you lose people you don’t want to lose, and that’s it. You can’t spend your whole life fighting for something that’s gone.”          

            “You’re not gone, Nezumi.”

            Nezumi took a breath that Shion could see in the rise of his chest, held it for a moment, then –

            “I’m transferring colleges. That’s why I’m studying. I need to do well on my finals to get admitted somewhere else,” Nezumi said, slowly, carefully, like he was talking to a small child, and at that moment, Shion felt like one.

            Confused. Betrayed. Upset. Cold.

            “You can’t do that,” Shion breathed.

            “It won’t be that bad. You’ve already known a life without me, it will be easier than you think to get back to,” Nezumi said, and Shion could hear his concern, as if Nezumi was worried about hurting him, as if it wasn’t an inevitability with the words he’d just said.

            “How can you tell me something like that? How can you tell me what my life will be like without you? How can you even pretend to know something like that?” Shion demanded, not noticing his voice rising until Nezumi pointed it out.

            “You have to lower your voice or you’ll get kicked out.”

            “Is it that you haven’t understood? You still don’t know how I feel about you? Because that’s the only reason I can think of logically that would explain how you could possibly imagine my life will be easy without you in it,” Shion said, not bothering to lower his voice even now that he knew it was too loud.

            He didn’t give a damn if he got kicked out of the library. It wasn’t the library he cared about, it was the man who worked there, it was the librarian’s assistant who sat across from him now, saying such ridiculous, awful things.

            “I can tell you how I feel, Nezumi, I can tell you everything – ”

            “Shion – ”

            “The first day I saw – ”

            “I don’t need you to do this, nor do I want you to. I know how you feel. I know this will hurt you. But it won’t break you. This is nothing compared to what a person can take,” Nezumi said, and Shion swallowed his retort because he’d only just realized that Nezumi had no intention of backing down.

            He was serious. He was determined.

            Shion did not know what a person could take. He had never had to handle heartache, never had to deal with loss, and Nezumi had, Nezumi was an expert in it.

            Even so, Shion couldn’t help but feel Nezumi was wrong, despite his experience in the subject.

            Nezumi leaving him would leave him broken.

            And Shion didn’t know how to stop him.

*

During finals week, when Shion went to the library, Nezumi was never there.

            Shion even asked the librarian what had happened to her assistant, and she replied that he’d asked for the last week of the semester off in order to study.

            Shion went to Nezumi’s dorm next, knocked until his knuckles hurt, then waited outside the door until Nezumi’s roommate came home from a class.

            “Where’s Nezumi?” Shion asked, in lieu of greeting.

            The roommate raised his eyebrows. “Haven’t seen the likes of you in a bit, have we?”

            “Do you know where he is?” Shion asked.

            The roommate shrugged. “No clue. He doesn’t take much time out of his day to chat with me, if you know what I mean,” he said, then stepped around Shion to unlock his door.

            Shion tried to think of something else to say, some way to word his desperation, but by the time he thought of anything, the roommate had closed the door behind him, and again Shion was left waiting in front of it alone.

            He stayed until past three in the morning, then accepted that Nezumi wasn’t going to show, and left.

*

Shion checked his phone again, then typed out another message.

            _Just say goodbye then. Please._

            “Stop texting him,” came a voice over Shion’s shoulder, and Shion jumped, turned.

            “He hasn’t replied,” he said to Safu, who tucked her hair behind her ears.

            “He needs time,” Safu replied, and Shion looked down at his phone, sent his text, pocketed his phone again knowing that even so he’d be pulling it out to check in less than a minute.

            “He’s transferring colleges. He doesn’t want time, he wants to break up,” Shion corrected, his voice strained, and Safu reached out, placed her hand on his arm.

            “Nezumi is many things, Shion, but he’s not stupid. He needs you, he just needs some time to realize that you’re worth the risk of a relationship. And he will realize it, don’t worry,” Safu said, sounding completely sure of herself, and while Shion was not used to doubting his friend, at this moment he couldn’t believe her completely.

            Nezumi was not a theory Safu had memorized or a formula from a textbook. Nezumi was unpredictable. He was illogical. He was unknowable, and this worried Shion most of all – that he would never know if Nezumi would come back, that he would be left waiting forever.

            “That’s your bus, Shion. You have to get on it,” Safu said, a little insistently, and Shion watched it approach, then pulled out his phone, checked it again even though it hadn’t vibrated.

            “He didn’t text back,” Shion said, helplessly, staring up at Safu.

            She stepped forward, wrapped her arms around Shion, and he tried to properly hug her back but knew his arms were weak around her.

            It wouldn’t matter. He would see Safu throughout the summer. She’d be interning at the university, but they’d already planned dates to meet up.

            When Safu pulled away, Shion made no move to step closer to the bus, which had stopped now, had a line forming at its door.

            “He’s not coming,” Shion said, looking around anyway.

            “Shion, you have to trust him. Now go!”

            Shion let Safu push him into the line, inched forward slowly, kept looking around the platform, gripped the handle of his duffel bag tighter and tighter.

            “He’s not going to come,” Shion whispered.

            “Text me when you get home, and I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” Safu said, and then Shion was stepping onto the bus, walking down the aisle, looking for an open window seat but there was none, and he was forced to sit in the aisle after throwing his duffel bag onto the overhead shelf.

            He pulled out his phone, stared at the blank screen, then called Nezumi.

            He was sent to voicemail. Again. He’d already left three.

            He hung up. Curled his fingers around his phone and stared down at his knees.

            He didn’t look up, even as the bus began to move.

*

The beginning of the summer was largely spent looking out the window, as if Shion might see Nezumi walking up his street.

            He also frequented the libraries nearby, thinking of finding Nezumi behind one of the shelves, but Nezumi would of course have been at a library near his own place, two hours from Shion.

            Midway through the summer, Shion forced himself to stop spending so long by the window – largely influenced by Safu’s lectures and insistence that it couldn’t be healthy to spend an entire summer waiting for someone who wouldn’t even answer his texts. Shion helped his mother in the bakery and got a part time job at a bookstore across the street.

            He realized he didn’t like bookstores as much as libraries. Bookstores were louder. Didn’t have that same quiet hum that almost made libraries seem like a living being. Instead of aisles, dark and secretive, there were shelves, bold and bright.

            And, of course, there was no librarian’s assistant in the bookstore – there was no grey-eyed man slipping books onto shelves with graceful fingers.

            _I miss you, Nezumi. Talk to me._

            Shion still sent Nezumi a text every now and then, but he was no longer checking his phone every day. And soon his texts changed, from pleas to updates, normal texts, as if they were in the middle of a conversation.

            Shion found it easier, to just pretend that Nezumi was about to reply, was opening his lips, was taking a breath.

            _I finally gave in to my colleagues and went out with them for dinner. It was more fun than I thought it would be._

            He started taking sleeping pills regularly, disliking that he was growing a dependence on them, but when he slept better, he thought of Nezumi less during the day.

            Still thought of him, of course, but mostly just at night, before the pills would kick in.

            Other times Shion thought of him in small moments, little things that would make him smile at the same time his chest would squeeze.

            _Watched a movie with my mom today that you would have loved. The main character was sarcastic and always had a smirk on her face like you do._

            By the end of the summer, Shion had nearly accepted that Nezumi was gone, would not be coming back. He hardly looked out his window anymore, and when he did, he did not sit by the sill and stare out, but took quick glances, more a reflex at that point than anything.

            _Packing for next semester. I can’t find my cardigan – did you do something to it?_

            And when Shion arrived back on campus, after greeting and embracing Safu at the bus stop and walking to the new apartment they’d rented together, he was not disappointed to not be greeted by Nezumi as well.

            He did not look around as he walked across campus, expecting to see a dark ponytail or a tall silhouette with his nose in a book.

            He did look quickly to the fountain as they passed it, but on seeing no man sprawled across it, a book in his lap, Shion was not surprised.

            He only gazed at the library, but did not suggest entering it, and instead, he and Safu got dinner and caught up on where’d they’d left off since Safu visited Shion for a weekend the month before.

            Only later that night, after Safu had gone to bed, did Shion sit up in his own bed, taking two sleeping pills before typing on his phone.

            _Campus feels odd without you, as if a building is missing, or one of the grounds has changed location completely. I don’t expect you to come back, or to reply, or even to read these texts. But you can’t expect me to stop thinking about you and wishing you would._

            He sent the text, just another blurb at the end of a string of others, then plugged in his phone to charge and laid down, falling asleep almost the moment his head hit the pillow, and dreaming of nothing at all.

*

Safu reached out and fixed Shion’s cap.

            “There, it’s straight,” she said, and Shion smiled at her.

            “Thanks.”

            His phone was in his pocket, and he didn’t even think about pulling it out.

            Or maybe he thought about it, but the thought was fleeting and easily put aside.

            Shion had not stopped texting Nezumi during his last two years in college, but the texts had become more and more infrequent, a habit more than anything, a sort of journal to himself. He did not think Nezumi was actually reading the texts wherever he was. It was comforting enough just to send them off, took some weight off Shion’s chest.

            Today, both Safu and Shion were graduating – a year earlier than their class, but Shion was eager to move on. He already had a job offer, as did Safu, and they’d be working close to each other.

            The future was bright, better than Shion could have imagined two years before, when he’d boarded a bus with his heart broken and his mind made up that his future would be awful if it was to take place without Nezumi.

            Shion’s life was not awful. He missed Nezumi, but it was a familiar feeling, no longer an ache but more of a weight like one of his limbs – he was used to it, and to not feel it would have been strange, unsettling.

            “Ready?” Shion asked, and Safu beamed.

            “I’ve been ready since I was a kid, Shion,” Safu replied, and Shion laughed, linked arms with his best friend, and together, they headed to their graduation ceremony.

*

It was late that night, after Shion, Safu, and Karan had stuffed themselves full of amazing food and shared a bottle of wine between them, that Shion pulled out his phone.

            _I graduated today. The feeling of it hasn’t quite settled in yet, but I don’t think I’m sad. I think I’m ready for what comes next. I’m ready to move on._

            Shion read his text before sending it, then reread his last line, realizing what it might have meant.

            He was ready to move on. From school, sure, but what about this other part of his life? This part that had become just his phone screen, just a few seconds one or two nights a week if that?

            Shion sent the message, then pressed his thumb to Nezumi’s name, opened the contact and stared at the delete button. It wouldn’t be hard, to move on from this silly routine. It was a habit, not an actual connection, and Shion knew this, had known this for a while, had long since accepted it.

            He closed his eyes, then exited out of the contact page and put his phone on his nightstand.

            There was no reason to delete the contact just yet. Another night, he vowed, but not yet.

            Shion reached over to his bottle of sleeping pills, took two, then closed his eyes, ready to let darkness interrupt any further thoughts he might have on the subject of the librarian’s assistant he used to love what felt like lifetimes ago.

*


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, Shion woke early for a walk. He was moving out of his mother’s house into his own apartment the next day with the money he’d saved from working at the town bookstore in the summers and getting another bookstore job on campus during the school year.

            Shion looked back at his childhood home as he left it. Another thing he was leaving behind, another part of his life that would be over. It saddened him to think that he would no longer be waking to the smell of baked goods and the murmur of early morning customers from the bakery below his living space.

            It was hard to imagine anywhere else feeling like home as much as this home had, and Shion turned away from his house reluctantly and continued walking, turning his face up to the sun.

            He walked for fifteen minutes more, passing his old school and the bookstore, and was on his way back when someone familiar drew his gaze.

            He had never before seen Nezumi on the street or in crowds. People with features that reminded him of Nezumi, sure – dark hair, pale skin, loose ponytails, scuffed boots – but never anyone whom he mistook for Nezumi. How could he? Nezumi was so distinct, so obvious, so familiar that Shion could not mistake anyone else for him.

            And so when Shion saw Nezumi standing in front of the bakery walkway, he knew immediately that this was indeed Nezumi, not a hallucination, not a trick of the light, though a little older than the Nezumi Shion used to know, broader-shouldered perhaps with longer hair that he had left down over his shoulders in dark swirls that seemed to stain his white shirt.

            Shion stopped walking, stood incredibly still, found himself falling so easily back into what he’d done as a child, what he’d done when he first saw Nezumi again in college – watching him.

            Nezumi lifted his hand, tucked his hair behind his ear. He wore a white t-shirt and two black hair ties on one wrist. He had black boots still, laced up the ankles of his jeans, but they were new – scuffed, but a different pair from that which Shion knew.

            Nezumi was not smiling. He was only looking, and then he was walking, and Shion still did not move, let Nezumi walk right up to him until there was less space than there should have been because they were hardly more than strangers by then.

            Vaguely, Shion thought about the texts. If Nezumi had been reading them. But the thought was fleeting, and Shion didn’t really care all that much.

            He had not sent the texts to be read. He had sent them to be answered. He had sent them to bring the man back, and here he was, here he was, here he _finally_ was, and Shion felt nothing but anger.

            Nezumi slipped his hands in his jeans pockets, and Shion watched him do this, took note of this.

            “Shion,” Nezumi said, not even _Hi,_ not even _Hello_ , just a name as if Nezumi had a right to speak it, and maybe this was it, this was the moment Shion couldn’t stand Nezumi more than ever before.

            Shion’s hand was already curled into a fist, and so punching the man came easily, the rise of his fist, the small step forward because he had studied inertia in school, knew how to arch his arm, and maybe he was a little off with his calculations because his heart was throbbing so loudly it was hard to concentrate, maybe he could have punched the man a little harder had he angled his arm a little higher, but Shion didn’t care because his knuckles made contact with the pale, pale skin of Nezumi’s jaw, and that was enough.

            Nezumi staggered back. Shion’s fist pulsed with a heartbeat of its own that burned. He shook his hand out, skin tingling.

            “Fuck,” Nezumi cursed. He was farther away now because of his steps back, was bent with a hand on his knee and was holding his face with the other, and Shion was glad there was more space between them.

            Even so, it wasn’t enough, and Shion walked forward, closing the space only briefly until he passed Nezumi, and then he was elongating the space with every step.

            He opened the bakery door, shut it behind him. Was sweating, he realized, almost out of breath. He felt his heartbeat everywhere now, spreading like a rash. His hand only seemed to hurt more than a few seconds before.

            “Shion?”

            Shion looked up, smiled at his mother to reassure her, unsure what his expression had been on entering the bakery. “Morning, Mom,” he greeted, and then he walked to the stairs and climbed up to his room.

            He did not stand by the window. He stood very still in the middle of his room, looking down at his hand, noting the redness of his skin and thinking of how Nezumi still managed to burn him, after all these years.

*

It wasn’t until the afternoon, as Shion cleared tables in the bakery after the lunchtime rush, that he saw Nezumi again.

            Nezumi came in with a ding of the bell above the bakery door, and Shion looked up to see a blooming splotch of brilliant maroon. Shion readjusted his fingers over his washcloth, feeling the wince of skin over his knuckles.

            Nezumi lifted his hands up in front of his chest, palms facing Shion, defensively.

            “Okay. Okay, Shion. You can yell at me. Get it out,” Nezumi said, voice understanding, which made no sense.

            Shion didn’t understand any of this, anything about this man, what the hell was it that Nezumi was understanding?

            “If you come closer to me, I’ll hit you again,” Shion said, voice even. He was being completely honest. He wanted Nezumi to come closer. He wanted to feel his heartbeat across his fist, to make Nezumi feel it as well – hadn’t he always been willing to give Nezumi his heart? Hadn’t he always been desperate for the man to take it?

            Nezumi took a step back. “Right. You don’t want to talk. That’s fine. I have time, Shion, I’ll wait for you to be ready,” he said, patiently, gently, and Shion hated that.

            Hated the care in Nezumi’s voice. Hated the concern.

            Concern? What use did Shion have for that? His pulse was hot under every inch of his skin, he wanted only to break this man – was what he going to do with concern?

            “I’ve been talking to you for years, and you never talked back. I have no desire to hear anything you have to say now.”

            Nezumi just looked at Shion, then nodded, dropped his hands. “I’ll go now. I’m at the motel next to the movie theater. Find me there, I’ll wait for you,” Nezumi said, again those words – _I’ll wait for you._

            But what did Nezumi know about waiting? What made him think he was strong enough to wait, when there was nothing harder, nothing that hurt more than that?

            Shion said nothing. Watched with narrowed eyes until Nezumi turned and left, looking back once at the door, then letting it close behind him.

            Shion didn’t bother staring at the back of Nezumi through the bakery windows until he was out of sight. He didn’t care to watch Nezumi walk away. He turned back to the table he was wiping and continued to clean, hardly noticing the throb of his knuckles any longer.

*

An hour after Shion, Safu, and Karan started lugging boxes of Shion’s belongings into his new apartment, Safu collapsed on Shion’s mattress, demanding a break.

            “It would have been nice to have more hands,” Karan conceded, looking around at the boxes crowding Shion’s new home.

            Shion bristled, shifting his fingers and feeling the tingle in his knuckles. “We don’t need anyone else,” he said, voice perhaps a bit too hard, as then Safu and his mother were staring at him, and Shion rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

            “Is everything okay?” Karan asked, and Shion smiled at her.

            “Of course,” he said.

            He could feel Safu staring at him, but Safu didn’t say anything, and neither did Karan but to suggest they get the last of the boxes and start unpacking before it got dark.

*

A week after Nezumi came back, Shion was walking home from his third day at his new job and spotted the man.

            Nezumi sitting on a bench in a park, reading, and it would have been so easy to stop and watch him, but Shion had no desire to see Nezumi’s pale fingers turning another page, the shift of his long legs, the way the breeze tangled into his hair.

            Shion turned around, walked the long way back home. It was a nice day out anyway, and he didn’t mind.

*

Eleven days after Nezumi came back, he walked into the bakery.

            Shion could hear his voice from the kitchen where he was rolling dough.

            “Can I help you?” came Shion’s mother’s voice, and then there was Nezumi’s, quiet and hesitant.

            “Yes, actually. If Shion is here, can you ask if he’ll see me?”

            Shion stopped rolling the dough, then continued, harder than before, smashing it against the counter in the way his mother had instructed him not to.

            There was a pause, then, “Who should I tell him has come to see him?”

            “He’ll know,” Nezumi said, and Shion rolled the dough into a ball just to punch it, watch the imprint of his knuckles crease its smooth surface.

            “Shion?”

            Shion looked up to see his mother’s face in the doorway.

            “Hi, Mom.”

            “There’s a young man here, asking if you’d like to see him.”

            Shion resumed rolling the dough properly, looking away from his mother. “I wouldn’t like to see him,” he replied, easily.

            He could tell his mother lingered, and glanced up at her.

            “How did you hurt your knuckles, Shion?” Karan asked, and Shion looked down at them.

            The redness had faded completely by then, but he knew his mom had noticed, had seen her looking at his hand a week earlier.

            He also knew Nezumi’s bruise would not have faded completely just yet, had perhaps another day or two to go.

            “Just an accident,” Shion replied, though it was anything but, and Shion was not used to lying to his mother.

            He found it came rather easily.

            Karan nodded once, then left, and Shion listened for her voice, instead heard Nezumi’s.

            “He doesn’t want to see me.” Nezumi did not sound upset. Nor did he sound surprised.

            “Can I ask who you are?” Karan asked.

            Shion stopped rolling the dough completely now, curious as to this answer – not that he cared, not that it mattered any more.

            “My name is Nezumi. And to Shion, I’ll be whomever he’ll let me be,” Nezumi said, and Shion ripped the dough in half.

            He heard the bell above the door ring a moment later, knew Nezumi was gone, and it was a relief, to let himself breathe fully again even though he hadn’t known his breaths had shallowed.

*

Two weeks after Nezumi came back, Shion’s mother mentioned him.

            They were hanging up picture frames in Shion’s new apartment, one of Karan’s pies baking in his oven, when she said, “I don’t know who this Nezumi is, but ignoring him will only bring you satisfaction if you truly don’t want to speak to him.”

            Shion let his corner of the picture frame drop a few inches. “I don’t want to speak to him.”

            “Okay,” Karan said, and she smiled gently at Shion, who knew she didn’t believe him.       

            “You don’t understand,” Shion said, lifting his corner of the frame back up, trying to see if it was even again.

            “I don’t, you’re right,” she only said, simply, and they resumed hanging up the picture frame in silence, Shion wondering why his mother had said such a thing, why she would assume he wanted to talk to Nezumi – he didn’t, he didn’t, he didn’t.

*

Twenty-three days after Nezumi came back, Shion ran into him in the seasoning aisle of the grocery store.

            Nezumi was looking at salt, which was what Shion needed. He approached the man without saying a word.

            “Excuse me,” Shion said, after deducing that he wouldn’t be able to reach around Nezumi to get the salt he wanted without touching him.

            Nezumi glanced around, blinked as if adjusting his eyes to sunlight.

            “Shion.”

            “I need to get the salt,” Shion replied, hating Nezumi’s surprise, how disarmed he looked.

            Since when had Nezumi ever been disarmed? Since when had he ever shown his emotions, let anyone know what he was thinking?

            “You’re going to pretend not to know me?”

            “Please move,” Shion said, not making eye contact with Nezumi, not caring to see those grey eyes the way he’d dreamed of for months after Nezumi left.

            “Get lunch with me.”

            Shion closed his eyes. Contemplated just coming to the salt aisle later, but he had a feeling Nezumi wouldn’t be easy to get rid of whether he stayed in this aisle or not.

            “Please move, Nezumi,” Shion repeated quietly – the first time he said Nezumi’s name out loud in months – and he opened his eyes, let himself look at Nezumi’s face and felt nothing – maybe something, but it was easy to ignore, easy to forget about.

            The grey eyes were heavy and moved quickly around Shion’s face.

            “Just coffee, then,” Nezumi said softly, and Shion hated this man so much, but he realized they were close enough to kiss.

            “I don’t want to have coffee with you,” Shion replied, making his voice hard, taking a step back.

            Nezumi ran a hand through his bangs. His hair was in a low side ponytail that fell over his shoulder. Shion liked that it had gotten longer, thought it looked beautiful – thought Nezumi looked beautiful, but that was nothing new.

            What was new was that Shion wanted only to get away from him.

            Nezumi nodded after a moment, slowly, then took a step back away from the salt. “Okay,” he said, and he turned to walk away, then glanced back over his shoulder. “I have a job at the theater. My shows are every night at six and Saturday and Tuesday mornings at eleven. You should come.”

            Shion had already looked away from Nezumi, was choosing his salt, but he heard every word Nezumi said and couldn’t help but remember the plays for class that Nezumi used to act out for him in his small dorm room, jumping on Shion’s bed and wielding Shion’s lamp for a sword or standing by a window and delivering a monologue that would make Shion’s eyes water.

            He did not want to go to one of Nezumi’s plays. He did not want to be reminded of when happiness had come so naturally to him that he’d forgotten it was not simply a part of being alive and was just a feeling that came and went like the rest of them.

*

Thirty-two days after Nezumi came back, Shion sat across from him at a coffee shop.

            He had not fully agreed to meet with Nezumi. He had only received a text from Nezumi – the first text in years – the night before that said, _Tomorrow, I’ll be at the coffee shop with the blue sign next to the theater. I’ll be there from noon to three._

            Nezumi had not even asked Shion to meet him, and Shion had read the text three times, a text that appeared out of place, interrupting Shion’s string of texts to Nezumi that spanned for years.

            He had no intentions of meeting Nezumi, but there he was, sitting across from the man the next day at half past one.

            Nezumi looked up from the newspaper spread on the table in front of him.

            “Shion,” he said, and Shion took note of the number of times this man had said his name since returning, as if it meant anything anymore, wrapped in the loveliness of his voice.

            “I don’t want to talk to you,” Shion said, abruptly.

            Nezumi blinked. “Okay.”

             Shion didn’t say anything. He glared at Nezumi, and then he stood up, but he didn’t leave the shop.

            He got a coffee, waited for it at the counter, then took it and sat back down across from Nezumi, who was still staring at him.

            Nezumi’s lips twitched, but he said nothing. Even so, Shion knew the hint of Nezumi’s smiles, hated that Nezumi was nearly smiling at him, hated that Nezumi was happy at all.

            Shion looked away from Nezumi, stared at his coffee.

            “Do you want a section of the newspaper?” Nezumi asked after a few minutes had passed in silence, voice gentle as if Shion were a small animal he was wary of frightening, and Shion looked up at him with narrowed eyes.

            Nezumi lifted his mug, took a sip, watched Shion over the rim of it. Shion held out a hand.

            He watched Nezumi shift through the paper, peeling out the NEWS and COMICS section and keeping for himself the ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT and SPORTS. He offered Shion’s portion across the table, and Shion took it.

            There was nothing for a while but the rustle of paper, and moments where Shion read the same line three times, certain that Nezumi was looking at him but refusing to look up and distracting himself with his paranoia.

            But after ten minutes or so, Shion felt his shoulders relaxing, lowering even though he hadn’t known he’d been tense. He rested his chin on his palm and felt at ease, and it was a strange feeling, to not be restless, to not feel as though he was waiting anymore.

            He finished his sections after an hour or so, what with his constant distractions, but even after he finished, he pretended he hadn’t, read the same article twice and then just let himself rest his eyes over the words, not bothering to read anything.

            He didn’t think he was happy. But he thought he might have been content, and the feeling was welcome after so many years of feeling as though he was missing something.

            Shion didn’t know how long it was, until he finally looked up from the paper. Nezumi was still looking down at his section, but Shion knew he must have finished reading a while before as well.

            He looked at Nezumi a moment more, then closed his newspaper sections and folded them next to his mug, which had been empty for a while. He stood up, did not take a last glance at Nezumi, and instead walked away without saying a word.

*

During the following two weeks, Nezumi and Shion got coffee seven times.

            They did not speak – but for Nezumi saying Shion’s name in greeting when he got to the coffee shop – until the seventh time, when Shion finished the NEWS section and was about to turn to COMICS.

            Instead, he looked up at Nezumi, who was reading with his cheek resting on his palm, his hair trickling through his fingers and down over his wrist and arm.

            “The last text I sent you a day before you came here said that I was moving on. Why would you come back after that?” Shion demanded, anger returning swiftly, and he didn’t know how he had let coffee and newspapers and silence keep it at bay.

            Nezumi looked up at him, raising his cheek from his chin, surprised again, and Shion again wondered why Nezumi was always surprised all of a sudden – what happened to being on guard? Impassive? Indifferent?

            “I didn’t want you to move on,” Nezumi said, like it was obvious, and Shion narrowed his eyes.

            “Does that not seem selfish to you?” he asked.

            Nezumi tucked his hair behind his ears. “Sure. And you sent me texts for years. You didn’t let me move on. Doesn’t that seem selfish to you?”

            “I wasn’t sending those texts for you! I didn’t even know you were reading them, I thought they were going to a cancelled number. I sent them for me because I missed talking to you, because I felt lonely, but they weren’t for you,” Shion snapped.

            Nezumi leaned forward. “So you don’t miss me anymore?”

            “Is that what you think? You can just come back and erase two years of you pretending I didn’t exist?” Shion asked, incredulous, because he’d never known Nezumi to be this dumb.

            Nezumi leaned back again, crossed his arms. “I came back for the same reasons you sent those texts.”

            “How do I know you’re not going to leave again?” Shion demanded.

            “You don’t,” Nezumi replied, shrugging, and Shion couldn’t believe the nerve of this man, wanted to hit him again, but instead he just stood up and left, wishing he hadn’t said anything at all.

            He didn’t get far from the coffee shop, however, as a few yards away from it there was a hand closing around his wrist, and Shion spun around, jerked his arm out of Nezumi’s grip.

            “Don’t – ”

            “I’m sorry,” Nezumi interrupted, holding up his hands, taking a step back. He closed his eyes, dropped his hands, exhaled deeply. “Look – I know you’re angry. I read every single one of your texts, Shion. I came back, and I wasn’t supposed to, but I – ” Nezumi cut himself off, shook his head, weaved his fingers through his hair and pulled.

            Shion clenched and unclenched his jaw. Wrapped his arms tight around himself, felt as though he could still feel where Nezumi had touched his wrist, his skin burning.

            “I want to be here, but I’ll go, if you want me to,” Nezumi said, finally, tucking his hands into his jeans pockets, looking openly at Shion who had always known this man to be hiding something.

            Now, he didn’t seem to be hiding anything, and Shion did not know what to do with this Nezumi, this Nezumi who was so willing to let Shion hurt him.

            “I don’t,” Shion said, shortly, even though sometimes he did want Nezumi to leave, and Nezumi nodded once.

            Shion couldn’t stand to look at him anymore, and walked away again, part of him relieved that there were no warm hands closing around his wrist – and part of him, the smallest part that was easiest to ignore, disappointed.

*

Two days later, when Nezumi walked into the bakery, Shion was at the counter.

            He did not let Nezumi say a word. Instead, he pointed behind him, to the kitchen.

            “We could use help, the dishwasher broke,” he said, and Nezumi didn’t miss a beat, acted as though he’d come here solely for this purpose.

            “Sure,” he replied, walking past Shion to the door of the kitchen, and Shion took the next customer’s order, unsure what had possessed him to say such a thing to Nezumi.

            He finished with the line, then went to the back, found Nezumi indeed at the sink washing dishes while his mother wove strips of dough into a lattice pattern atop an apple pie on the counter beside him.

            “Shion, could you get me more flour?” Karan asked, looking up when Shion walked in, and Shion did as he was told, making eye contact with Nezumi quickly before looking away.

            When the bakery closed for the day, Karan sent Nezumi and Shion to clear the tables and then sit down for pie, and they did as they were told, sitting by the window.

            “Are you working?” Nezumi asked, and Shion could have chosen not to speak, knowing Nezumi would not force him, but he found himself answering Nezumi, and then he kept answering, and then he was asking Nezumi questions of his own – innocent things, simple things – and then they were having a conversation, and it was so easy, so simple, so natural.

            They talked long into the night, up to the early hours of the morning, and then Shion’s eyes felt heavy, and Nezumi was saying he would see him tomorrow, and they were clearing the table before Nezumi was leaving.

            Shion went upstairs, brushed his teeth, but couldn’t even manage a shower.

            He collapsed onto his bed and fell asleep immediately, forgetting to take his sleeping pills – not that he needed them, for the first time in years.

*

They were not friends.

            At least, they were not friends as they had been, when it had been easy, when it had been thoughtless.

            Shion began to speak to Nezumi again, and then he was watching Nezumi’s shows at the theater, and Nezumi was meeting Shion during his lunch breaks at work, and they baked together in Karan’s shop, and they met at the coffee place and spoke sometimes, though sometimes it was perfectly fine just to read the newspaper in silence.

             But when they read together, it was not with tangled limbs. And when Nezumi walked by Shion, he did not let his fingers tangle in Shion’s hair. And when Nezumi laughed, it wasn’t as loud, and he didn’t bother to hide it in the sleeve of Shion’s t-shirts. And though now Shion could sleep without pills, he always found himself cold, dragging blankets from the storage closet and wrapping them around himself but still, he would wake shivering, curling in on himself.

            And perhaps the biggest change from before – Shion was still angry, and Nezumi must have known this, acted awkwardly where he had once been graceful in small ways Shion wondered if he was only imagining.

            But Shion hid his anger with fingers curled into fists, and Nezumi did not complain when Shion couldn’t hide it, when he snapped at Nezumi for something so simple as being too slow to wash a baking pan when really, Shion couldn’t have cared less about how fast Nezumi did the dishes.

            Of course he didn’t. What he cared about were the months he’d spent waiting, loving this man who refused to acknowledge him, who let him lose hope and finally start to recover only to come back again, how dare he come back again – sometimes Shion wondered if it was the coming back that was worse than the leaving in the first place.

            Nezumi took Shion’s slips of anger without protest. Always came back to the bakery the next day, or texted Shion for coffee, or met him outside his work, and Shion often wondered why the man was even bothering.

            A part of Shion wanted Nezumi to stop coming back. To leave and walk away and let that just be it, let it be over. It had taken Shion too long to get over this man, this man who had the audacity to come back right when Shion was finally moving on – and how was Shion supposed to get over him now?       

            At night, Shion wondered if he was still in love with Nezumi. He thought he might have fallen out of love with him, sometime in the two years that Nezumi had been absent, but he wasn’t sure. What did it feel like to fall out of love?

            Shion had fallen in love so quickly he couldn’t quite remember what it had felt like. Natural, routine, he thought. It had just happened without his notice, and by the time he had noticed, it was hardly surprising, as if he’d known all along that it would happen, as if he’d expected no less.

            Now, Shion didn’t know what to expect. He didn’t think he could continue having coffee and washing dishes beside Nezumi for the rest of his life. It was not natural, it left him restless, to have this man beside him again. He didn’t know what to do with Nezumi, and so he pretended they were friends, and maybe they were, but it was nothing like the friendship Shion had known before with Nezumi, and Shion did not know if he wanted it to last when it only reminded him of what they no longer had.

*


	5. Chapter 5

They were reading on Shion’s floor, backs against Shion’s bed, an inch between their shoulders.

            Nezumi was reading a new script, and Shion was proofreading the hand-outs he had prepared for his meeting the next day.

            It was late, and Shion’s eyes kept slipping out of focus. He moved his laptop from his lap and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, then yawned.

            “If you’re tired, I can go,” Nezumi said, and Shion thought about how before, he would have simply rested his head on Nezumi’s shoulder, fallen asleep like this, how natural that would have been.

            “I don’t know if I can sleep yet. I feel unprepared. It’s the first meeting I’m leading on my own.”

            “You’ll be fine, your supervisor wouldn’t have let you lead a meeting if she thought you couldn’t handle it,” Nezumi replied, placing his script beside him.

            Shion ran a hand through his hair, nodded. “You’re right,” he said, stretching his arms over his head, and he saw Nezumi’s gaze slip down for a moment before returning to his face.

            Shion pulled his t-shirt down from where it had risen up when he’d stretched.

            “I am a little tired,” he said, and Nezumi nodded slowly.

            Shion realized how close they were to each other. The inch between their shoulders was not enough, but Shion wasn’t sure if it was too far a distance or too close.

            Shion looked up at the grey he used to think was beautiful, he used to be sure he could look at for hours at a time, if Nezumi let him. Now, the grey just reminded him of everything they didn’t have.

            Shion used to forget the rest of the world when Nezumi was with him, but now all he did was remember, remember the past as if the present wasn’t even happening, as if the present didn’t matter.

            “Shion,” Nezumi said, quietly, but that meant nothing, Nezumi said Shion’s name often now, slipping it into silences where it didn’t belong and into sentences when it wasn’t necessary.

            Shion, on the other hand, rarely said Nezumi’s name. The syllables felt strange in his mouth, and his voice sounded odd in his ears when it curled over the letters.

            Shion knew Nezumi was going to kiss him before Nezumi leaned forward. He had not been waiting for this to happen, but a part of him expected it, thought of it as the natural course of things, and he had not known if he would let Nezumi kiss him when he tried.

            He still found Nezumi beautiful. He still remembered how it felt, to be touched by him.

            But he did not crave the feeling of Nezumi’s pale skin. He did not care to knot his fingers in the silk of Nezumi’s hair. He did not want to feel the hot of Nezumi’s breath over his own skin.

            He did not feel disgust, but he did not feel desire. He felt nothing, indifference, and he didn’t mind it.

            Nezumi had been indifferent for years – hadn’t he?

            Wasn’t it only fair, that Shion was indifferent now?

            That Shion was the one who didn’t care?

            That Shion was the one who didn’t want this man?

            So when Nezumi’s lips pressed against his, Shion pushed him back with fingers on Nezumi’s chest, with hardly any pressure, but Nezumi broke apart from him immediately.

            “I can’t,” Shion said, because he couldn’t manage, _I don’t want to._

            He could see Nezumi’s swallow in the shift of his Adam’s apple.

            “Okay. I’m sorry,” Nezumi replied. He cleared his throat.

            “It’s fine,” Shion said. He could still feel the smallest trace of warmth on his lips.

            He had not kissed anyone since Nezumi. It had not occurred to him to kiss anyone else, to meet anyone else, even when he’d accepted that Nezumi wasn’t coming back.

            Shion wondered, vaguely, if he’d lost all ability to feel desire whatsoever. He didn’t think he would mind so much.

            Desire was a dangerous thing. Nezumi had been right all along – to love was not worth the possibility of loss.

            “I’ll go,” Nezumi said, and he had already stood up, stooped back down to pick up his script from Shion’s floor.

            Shion looked up at him, watched him walk to his door.

            “Goodnight, Shion,” Nezumi said, turning back with his hand on the doorknob, and Shion didn’t get a chance to reply before Nezumi was gone.

*

Shion took two sleeping pills that night. He knew he didn’t need them, was tired already and would fall asleep without them, but he didn’t want to know what he thought about the kiss that he’d hardly even felt.

            He didn’t want any time to think about it. He didn’t want to wonder if he was really indifferent after all, he didn’t want to find out he wasn’t, he didn’t want to realize he cared about Nezumi – of course he did, it was Nezumi, it had always been Nezumi, it would always be Nezumi.

*

Two weeks after the kiss, Shion went to Nezumi’s show, watched Nezumi on stage, let himself feel mesmerized by the pale of Nezumi’s skin and the quiet of his voice, even as it projected to the entirety of the theater.

            After the show, he waited outside the dressing room door, and Nezumi came out after only a few minutes, his black eyeliner not entirely wiped off so that his eyes stood out even further from his pale features.

            “Shion,” he said, and then, “hi,” quick surprise over his features that Shion knew to expect by now.

            It occurred to Shion that he should not have been questioning why Nezumi was finally letting himself show his surprise, but why Nezumi was surprised at all in the first place.

            Was Nezumi expecting Shion to leave? Was he expecting Shion to never come back? Was he expecting Shion to finally be done with him?

            “You did well,” Shion said, and Nezumi gave a small smile.

            “Thank you.”

            “Do you want to get a drink?”

            “Okay,” Nezumi said, so Shion led the way out of the theater and across the street to a small bar that was usually quiet.

            Since the kiss, he had seen Nezumi almost every day, as usual. Nothing had changed between them, but Shion wanted change.

            He hated the way they were. He didn’t know what he wanted, but it wasn’t this, it wasn’t what they had.

            They ordered drinks, Nezumi a beer and Shion a double vodka soda, earning him raised eyebrows from Nezumi, though the latter said nothing. They sat at a table in the back.

            Shion had never been to a bar with Nezumi. He had only drunk with Nezumi in their dorm rooms, bottles of cheap wine and vodka shared between them. Even then, he had only gotten drunk once or twice. He preferred to stay sober, knowing Nezumi was more likely to get drunk, knowing the man would need someone to take care of him, to talk to him in a gentle voice and kiss him softly when the sadness stage of his drunken state hit.

            Now, Shion didn’t care to comfort Nezumi. He wanted to be comforted. He was the sad one, he wanted to feel better, and so he downed his drink and bought a new one before Nezumi had even finished half his pint.

            “Shion,” Nezumi said, after Shion had finished three drinks and stood up to buy a fourth.

            Nezumi’s hand was on Shion’s wrist, and Shion looked down at it, then looked up at Nezumi, his eyes wavering, unable to latch onto the grey.

            He was maybe a little bit drunk, but that wasn’t enough.

            “What?” Shion asked. He moved his wrist from Nezumi’s grip.

            “Are you okay?”

            It was such a stupid question that Shion couldn’t help it – he laughed, loudly, mouth open wide, bending over with his hands on the sticky table. He kept laughing, then wiped at his eyes, pointed at Nezumi, noted vaguely that his hand was shaking, then stepped away from the table.

            He couldn’t remember why he had gotten up. The bathroom?

            No, no, he’d just gone to the bathroom. He took another step, saw the bar, remembered he wanted another drink, and walked up to get it.

            The bartender was pretty. She smiled at him as she slid the drink across the counter.

            Shion smiled back as he handed over his money.

            “Who’s your friend?” the bartender asked, and Shion blinked at her, confused until she pointed, and Shion followed her finger.

            She was pointing at Nezumi, who watched Shion from their table.

            “He’s not my friend,” Shion replied, closing his hand around his glass.

            “Oh? Who is he then?” the girl asked, tucking her hair behind her ear just like Nezumi did, and Shion wanted to reach out, touch it, stopped himself by gripping his glass harder.

            “Someone I used to know,” Shion replied, sloppily, and the girl tilted her head at him, but Shion didn’t care to talk to her any longer, just wanted to down his drink.

            He gave her a clumsy nod, then turned, walked back to his table and stood in front of it, not bothering to sit.

            He downed his drink in several gulps, wincing, and only then did he fall into his chair.

            “Why are you drinking so much?” Nezumi asked.

            Shion wiped the back of his hand over his lips. He leaned across the table. Wanted to climb onto it. Wanted to be closer to the man on the other side of it.

            “Why are you little drinking? Drinking so little?” Shion asked, pointing at Nezumi, accidentally pointing too far – “Oops,” he giggled, when his finger touched Nezumi’s chest.

            He curled his arm back towards himself, laughing. His head felt heavy and light and wonderful. A song was playing that he liked, and he nodded his heavy, light, wonderful head to it.

            “I think you should stop,” Nezumi said, slowly, and Shion was grateful at his pace, had to replay the slow words in his head to fully understand them.

            “I think _you_ should stop,” he retorted, swaying on his chair, and Nezumi’s hand grasped his shoulder.

            Shion turned his head, looked down at Nezumi’s hand with difficulty, thought about kissing the top of it, and the idea was so funny he was laughing again.

            “You’re going home now,” Nezumi said, and Shion jerked out of his grasp.

            “No!”

            “Shion, don’t yell.”

            Shion stood up, swayed, tried to grasp the table but his hand went too far and he was knocking over his glass, but it was already empty, so that didn’t matter.

            “That didn’t matter,” he pointed out to Nezumi, who was standing, which was surprising, as Shion hadn’t seen him get up. “How did you – ”

            “Put on your coat.”

            “I’m not leaving!” Shion objected, pushing Nezumi in the chest with both hands, hard. Too hard, and Nezumi staggered back – maybe not hard enough, Shion thought, but only mildly, a loose thought – all of his thoughts seemed loose, hard to grasp on to.

            “Unbelievable,” Nezumi was murmuring, and Shion stepped forward and pushed him again because he’d liked it, the feeling of this body under his hands. It was so solid.

            Since when had Nezumi been so solid? Hadn’t he just been gone? Hadn’t he just been a name in Shion’s phone that he used to text for no reason at all?

            “When did you get here?” Shion asked, confused, and Nezumi squinted at him.

            Shion reached out, touched Nezumi’s hair. It was longer than the last time he’d touched it, and he wondered if it would feel different, but it didn’t, it felt the same, and this was strange to Shion.

            “Your hair feels the same,” Shion said.

            Nezumi had caught his hand, was unraveling Shion’s fingers from his hair. “Don’t do that,” he said, and his voice sounded weird.

            “Your voice sounds weird,” Shion said, laughing, trying to look at Nezumi’s eyes, but it was incredibly hard to focus, he could feel himself swaying, realized he wanted to dance. “Dance with me!” he said, but he didn’t really care, was already dancing on his own, didn’t need Nezumi to dance even though he still remembered the feeling of Nezumi’s body so close to his, and how that inch of space between their chests had almost been better than touching, had almost been better than everything.

            Shion tripped on a chair, heard voices around him, didn’t care about any of them because he had caught himself, was standing up right again, balance was no issue at all.

            There was a hand around Shion’s wrist, and he let it pull him, saw that it was Nezumi and was happy to fall into Nezumi’s chest.

            “Dance with me,” he said, happily – how was it that it had been so long that Shion had been happy?

            Nezumi was back – how could he not be happy?

            Nezumi looked down at him, and Shion grinned wide, the feeling strange as if his mouth was not used to stretching so wide.

            Maybe it wasn’t. Shion couldn’t remember if he ever smiled this wide anymore. He couldn’t remember anything but that he loved this man – well, of course he couldn’t remember, when could he ever remember anything around Nezumi?

            “Nobody dances in this bar,” Nezumi said, and Shion wondered why he was speaking so softly.

            “Nobody but us,” Shion corrected, and he leaned away from Nezumi, grabbed Nezumi’s wrist and pulled him and tried to do some sort of dance, but he was tripping over his own feet again, and it was easier to let Nezumi catch him once more.

            “Shion, let me take you home,” Nezumi said, and he was very serious.

            Shion tilted his head. “Why are you so serious?” he asked, and then he felt his body weighing him down, felt himself sagging, wanted another drink to keep him awake because he hated the tired part of being drunk, the happy part was better, it had been so long since he’d been happy, and he wanted to be happy all the time – he used to be happy all the time.

            “Come on.”

            “Another drink!” Shion slurred, finding the slur of his words funny, giggling a little bit, still leaning on Nezumi.

            He liked the feeling of Nezumi’s body, couldn’t stop thinking about how solid it was, how nice that was, to have something to lean on.

            “I’d fall over without you,” he pointed out, reaching up, touching Nezumi’s hair again.

            Nezumi moved his hand again. He was leading Shion out of the bar, but Shion didn’t mind, the cool on his face from the outside was so lovely, and he smiled at it, at the night sky.

            “This is nice.”

            “Put some weight on your own feet, I’m not carrying you,” Nezumi said, but Shion didn’t want to, put less weight on his own feet and felt Nezumi’s arm tighten around his waist – when had his arm gotten there again?

            Shion didn’t care, liked that it was there, it hardly mattered when it had gotten there. He wanted it to squeeze him tighter, squeeze out all the empty spaces that were inside him, and so he let his knees buckle.

            “Shion,” Nezumi chastised, but he lifted Shion anyway, and Shion grinned.

            “It’s gravity’s fault. Blame Isaac Newton,” he said, then laughed so hard at his own joke that when he doubled over this time, it wasn’t on purpose, and Nezumi lost his grip.

            “Would you stop being so difficult?” Nezumi asked, but he didn’t sound angry, he sounded soft and gentle and Shion’s knees were on the sidewalk but then Nezumi was lifting him up again, under his arms. “Lean on me, put your arm around my shoulder, yeah, like that.”

            “I like that you’re soft now,” Shion said sleepily, leaning his head on Nezumi, concentrating on making his steps in the right direction, not that he remembered how to get home, but he would just go where Nezumi was going – why would he ever go anywhere else?

            “Almost there,” Nezumi said after several minutes, and Shion was relieved, was getting cold now, wanted to be closer to Nezumi’s body, but whenever he tried, Nezumi would pry him off.

            Getting up the stairs of Shion’s apartment building was difficult, and Shion wasn’t sure how he managed, only that Nezumi’s hands seemed to be on him for the duration of the climb, and he liked that, he’d forgotten how much he liked that – what a silly thing to forget.

            “Nezumi, Nezumi – ”

            “I’ll get you a glass of water before I leave,” Nezumi said, after he deposited Shion on his bed, and Shion immediately sprang up, felt his head spin, regretted the movement.

            “Oh, that’s not good,” he murmured, holding his head in place with both hands.

            “Just lie down,” Nezumi said.

            “Lie down with me,” Shion countered, looking at the man, trying to catch his eyes and succeeding after a few seconds.

            Nezumi shook his head. “No, Shion. I have to leave.”

            “Why are you always leaving?” Shion complained, reaching out for Nezumi’s arm, grabbing it and pulling the man to the bed as he collapsed backwards onto it.

            Nezumi fell over him, cursing.

            “Shion, let go – ”

            “You can kiss me again,” Shion said, smiling brightly, and Nezumi stopped struggling, stared at him.

            Shion laughed. He knew this would distract the man. They had always loved to kiss each other, Shion remembered that, wondered why they’d stop, he couldn’t remember that part – why had they stopped?

            “You’re so beautiful, Nezumi,” Shion whispered, happily, reaching out with the hand that wasn’t around Nezumi’s wrist, lifting it to Nezumi’s hair, running his fingers clumsily through Nezumi’s bangs.

            Nezumi shook his head again. “No, I’m not,” he said, and his voice was small, and Shion didn’t like that.

            He untangled his hand from Nezumi’s hair with difficulty, pulling it a little, giggling in apology, touching Nezumi’s lips with the tips of his fingers.

            “Are you sad, Nezumi?” Shion whispered because it seemed like a secret, he wondered if he was supposed to know it at all.

            Nezumi didn’t say anything. He was looking at Shion in a way that made Shion feel as though he was drowning, as though he couldn’t breathe, and he wanted to tell Nezumi this, but he was worried Nezumi would take it the wrong way, wouldn’t understand.

            Shion loved to drown. He didn’t want to breathe.

            “Let’s not be sad anymore,” he offered, wanting to help Nezumi, wanting to make Nezumi better because he looked a little broken.

            “I have to go, Shion.”

            “Where are you going?” Shion demanded. He was trying to help this man – why was he being so stubborn?

            “Home.”

            “This is your home,” Shion replied, but then he remembered that they didn’t live together, and the thought was somewhat shocking. Why didn’t they live together, when all Shion wanted was to be with Nezumi all the time?

            “Shion, I’m going to leave now, okay? I can’t stay,” Nezumi was saying, leaning up, and Shion leaned up with him, reaching out and catching the hem of Nezumi’s shirt in his hand because he’d accidentally let go of Nezumi’s wrist.

            “How long do you have to keep leaving me before we can be together again?” he asked, sadly, and Nezumi started uncurling Shion’s fingers from his shirt.

            “I’m not leaving you, I’m just going home. I’m coming back tomorrow. I’ll see you tomorrow, when you’re not drunk anymore,” Nezumi was saying.

            Each time he loosened one finger and moved to the next, Shion regripped his shirt.

            “Shion, let go!”

            “No!” Shion shouted back, and Nezumi pulled on his own bangs.

            “You can be so irritating, you know that?” Nezumi snapped.

            “I just want you to stay with me, why is that so difficult?” Shion demanded, and he let go of Nezumi’s shirt, fell back onto his bed, didn’t care if Nezumi stayed anymore.

            He curled onto his side, wrapped his arms around himself, closed his eyes tight.

            “Shion.”

            Shion opened his eyes. Nezumi’s voice was soft again, and closer, and that was because Nezumi was right there, crouching beside Shion’s bed, face inches from Shion’s.

            “Staying was never the difficult part,” Nezumi said, and his hand was in Shion’s hair, combing through it with cool fingers.

            Shion sighed at his touch. Wanted it all over.

            “Hey, Nezumi, can I tell you a secret?” Shion whispered.

            Nezumi’s fingers froze in his hair. He looked younger than Shion remembered him being, and Shion wondered if they had even aged at all, if they were still just kids, if no time had passed at all since Shion used to look at Nezumi’s empty desk in elementary school and wonder when Nezumi would come back again.

            After half a minute, Nezumi nodded silently.

            “I kept texting you because I was scared you would forget about me,” Shion confessed, the fact only just having occurred to him, but he realized it was true.

            Ever since Nezumi had told him he wanted to forget about him, Shion had been absolutely terrified.

            He still was. He was terrified that Nezumi would forget what they’d had, but he was also terrified that he would forget as well.

            How to be in love with this man. How to be happy with him.

            Nezumi pulled his hand from Shion’s hair, and Shion was sad, wanted it back, wanted all of Nezumi back.

            “I tried to. Forget you,” Nezumi said.

            Shion closed his eyes. He wanted to be asleep.

            “I don’t think I can,” Nezumi continued, hardly a whisper, and Shion opened his eyes again.

            “I’m sorry,” he said, because Nezumi looked so sad, and Shion thought maybe it would be okay to be forgotten, if Nezumi wasn’t sad anymore.

            The thought hurt though, ached in his heart, and Shion pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapped his arms around them and squeezed.

            Nezumi didn’t say anything. He leaned forward, and Shion thought he was going to kiss him, but Nezumi just grazed his lips against Shion’s forehead, so lightly Shion could hardly be certain there was any contact between their skin at all.

            “Stay with me tonight, Nezumi,” Shion asked.

            Nezumi had stood up. He looked down at Shion, then at the door, then at Shion again.

            “You won’t be happy in the morning,” Nezumi replied, and Shion didn’t understand this – how could he not be happy to wake next to this man he loved?

            “I will.”

            “You don’t like me much when you’re sober, Your Majesty,” Nezumi said gently, and Shion smiled because he’d forgotten this nickname, he was so happy Nezumi had made him remember.

            “I’m sober now.”

            At this, Nezumi gave a small smile. “Not quite.”

            “Yes.”

            “Okay, you’re sober.”

            “So sleep next to me. I like you.”

            Nezumi ran a hand through his bangs. “Weren’t you falling asleep ten minutes ago?” he asked, voice strained.

            Shion smiled at him, wide, hoping his grin would do the trick.         

            Nezumi covered his eyes with his hand, then dragged it over his face and walked to the other side of Shion’s bed, sitting on the edge of it.

            “What’re you doing?” Shion asked, rolling over to watch the curve of Nezumi’s back.

            “Taking off my boots.” Nezumi straightened up, tugged off his jacket, then turned and slipped his legs under Shion’s blanket.

            Shion smiled wider. “Scoot closer.”

            Nezumi slid closer, but left space between them that Shion closed, draping himself over Nezumi’s body, resting his head on Nezumi’s chest.

            “Bad idea, Your Majesty.”

            “You feel nice. Solid.”

            He looked up, saw Nezumi looking down at him.

            “Can you kiss me?” Shion asked, and Nezumi frowned.

            “No, I cannot.”

            “Why?”

            “Don’t be greedy, I got into your bed. Now go to sleep, that was the deal.”

            “I didn’t shake on any deal,” Shion protested.

            Nezumi exhaled loudly. “If you don’t go to sleep, I won’t stay,” he said, and Shion quickly rested his head back down on Nezumi’s chest.

            He wound an arm over Nezumi’s waist, curled his fingers tight around the hem of Nezumi’s t-shirt, just in case.

            “Don’t leave in the middle of the night,” he whispered. “I’ll be cold.”

            There was a minute or more of silence, and Shion almost fell asleep when he was stirred by a quiet voice. “I won’t leave, Your Majesty,” Nezumi said, and Shion felt Nezumi’s fingers in his hair again.

            Shion smiled lazily, and then he was sleeping.

*

The morning hurt.

            Shion woke and wanted to be asleep again immediately. He also really had to pee.

            He opened his eyes, found that he was not alone.

            Shion sat up abruptly, and Nezumi stirred, dragging a hand over his eyes before moving it and waking fully.

            “Oh,” he said, blinking.

            Shion stared at him. “You’re in my bed.”

            “Shion – ” Nezumi started, voice cracking with remnants of sleep, pushing off the mattress with his elbows to sit up, but Shion didn’t have time to listen to him, his bladder was going to explode.

            “I need to pee,” he said abruptly, and then he got off the bed and left the room quickly.

            As Shion peed, he tried to remember. His memory was always playing tricks on him when it came to Nezumi, and Shion knew it wouldn’t help that he must have gotten himself plastered. He vaguely recalled trying to dance at the bar.

            To postpone returning to his room and whatever had happened the night before, Shion brushed his teeth and washed his face. He still felt as though the lights were too bright, but he took Tylenol for his throbbing head and steadied himself against the bathroom door for a full minute, breathing slowly in and out.

            He left the bathroom and walked warily back to his bedroom, where Nezumi was still sitting on his bed.

            “We didn’t have sex,” Nezumi said immediately, and somehow, hearing him say it only annoyed Shion.

            Was it supposed to be assumed that they had sex? Did Nezumi really think Shion would forget everything the man had done to him that easily just because he was a little intoxicated?

            “I’m assuming you brought me home, so thank you. Next time, however, I have to ask that you refrain from sleeping in my bed,” Shion replied, coolly, peeling off his t-shirt because it stank of booze.

            “Right. So we’re just forgetting everything that happened last night,” Nezumi said, sounding annoyed himself, which wasn’t right.

            It wasn’t as if Shion had slept in Nezumi’s bed uninvited.

            “I thought you said nothing happened last night,” Shion countered, pulling on a clean shirt. He was beginning to worry.

            What had he said? What had he done?

            “I said we didn’t have sex. Not for your lack of trying, might I add,” Nezumi snapped, finally getting out of Shion’s bed.

            “What is that supposed to mean?” Shion demanded.

            “Nothing, Shion, it means nothing. Why should it mean anything, it’s just words, right? Fuck,” Nezumi cursed, running a hand roughly through his hair.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shion said, hotly. He was hungover and felt like shit, didn’t feel like decoding whatever it was Nezumi was trying to say.

            “I knew this was a bad idea, but you insisted, and what was I supposed to do, leave you again?” Nezumi asked, clearly angry, and Shion watched him with some degree of amazement.

            “Leave me again? What does that mean? I’m not asking you to stay here, Nezumi. Don’t be here for my sake. If you want to leave, go ahead and leave.”

            “You know, you’re pretty full of bullshit,” Nezumi replied, shoving his feet into his boots.

            “Nezumi, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shion said, and Nezumi just shook his head, made to leave, but Shion stepped in front of him.

            “I thought you wanted me out?”

            “What did I say to you last night? What did I do?”

            “You didn’t do anything,” Nezumi said flatly.

            “Then I’d say you’re the one whose full of bullshit,” Shion retorted, and Nezumi tried to sidestep him, but Shion was ready, stepped faster.

            “You’re giving some conflicting signals here, you know that?” Nezumi sighed.

            “What happened last night?” Shion asked again, louder, not helping his own headache, but he didn’t care.

            Nezumi looked down at him. The grey of his eyes was bright. “You forgot,” he finally said.

            “Forgot what?”

            Nezumi looked away, exhaled hard, then looked back at Shion. “That you hate me.”

            He made to leave again, even got around Shion, who took a moment to get over his shock, but he quickly turned.

            “I don’t hate you,” he said, almost confused.

            How could Nezumi tell? How did he know this, when Shion wasn’t even sure of it himself?

            Nezumi didn’t appear phased. “Yeah, you’re right, you don’t. You don’t like me either. You feel nothing, I get that. But last night, you forgot that,” he said evenly, and then he was walking out Shion’s door.

            Shion thought about following him. Did follow him, all the way out his apartment, but he stopped at the top of his stairs and watched Nezumi descend them until he was out of sight.

            Shion gripped the banister. He wanted to shout at Nezumi, to protest, but there was nothing to say.

            After all, wasn’t Nezumi right?

*

That afternoon when Shion visited the bakery after work to help his mother clean up, he found Nezumi in the kitchen.

            He stood in the doorway and watched his mother instruct Nezumi on how to make roses out of icing.

            “You have to hold your wrist at more of an angle. And squeeze gently, there’s no rush. Flowers are incredibly delicate things,” Karan said, and Nezumi held the tube of icing over a cupcake, but nothing came out.

            “It’s not working.”

            “Well, you do have to squeeze a little harder than that.”

            “I thought flowers were delicate things,” Nezumi sighed.

            “Just a little pressure, that’s all.”

            Nezumi squeezed the tube, and a glob of icing plopped onto the cupcake. “Shit.”

            “That’s all right.”

            “It’s useless,” Nezumi complained, throwing the tube of icing on the counter. He looked up, eyes locking on Shion’s. “Oh, hi, Shion.”

            “Hey,” Shion replied.

            “How was work, honey?” Karan asked, smiling at him.

            Shion shrugged. “Good. I think I’ll shower now.” He didn’t want to help out in the bakery anymore, but didn’t want to insult his mother by leaving so soon.

            “All right, come down after, the cupcakes should be done by then.”

            In the shower, Shion turned the water hotter and hotter until it was burning him, and he could no longer stand under the spray. He stood in the corner of his shower and watched the bathroom fill with smoke, occasionally sticking his hand under the spray to feel the scald of it.

            When he got out, he was sweating. Couldn’t dry his skin, as sweat kept sneaking out his pores, and so he stood naked in the middle of his old room, waiting to cool.

            He could hear the voices of Nezumi and his mother downstairs. He had no desire to join them, and even after he began to turn cold, Shion did not move.

            He felt lost, and he blamed Nezumi.

            Why shouldn’t he? It was Nezumi’s fault for leaving him, and it was Nezumi’s fault for coming back, and Shion had never been offered a choice on either decision.

            He curled his hands into fists. Glanced at his clock, saw that an hour had passed since he’d gone up to shower.

            He finally moved, got dressed in sweats and headed back downstairs in his slippers.

            Nezumi was icing another cupcake. An hour had passed, and Shion was amazed the man was still trying.

            Shion stood in the doorway and watched Nezumi ice a messy flower. Sloppy, a little uneven, but still identifiable as a rose.

            Shion’s mother hugged Nezumi, who stood very still, then raised his arms up slowly, pressed the flats of his hands to Karan’s back.

            When she let go, they both noticed Shion in the doorway again.

            “Look at what Nezumi did!” Shion’s mother said, and Shion looked at it again.

            “It looks good,” he said, but he didn’t care about Nezumi’s icing abilities.

            _Look at what Nezumi did_ , Shion wanted to say, and he wanted to pull his heart from his chest, show how small it had gotten, squeezed too hard by this man who had refused to take it, had only ruined it and left it useless to Shion.

            “You two, go on and relax, I’ll clean up,” Karan said, shooing them off.

            “I’ll clean up, Mom, you’ve been on your feet all day.”

            “No, it’s no trouble, you work so hard – ”

            Shion stepped forward, guided his mother gently from the kitchen until she laughed and swatted his hands away, kissing him on the cheek before climbing up the stairs.

            Back in the kitchen, Shion wiped down the counters and put away ingredients while Nezumi did the dishes.

            “Why are you here?” Shion asked, after a few minutes had passed with only the sound of clinking dishes.

            “I like helping your mother in the bakery. She said she’d give me some private lessons so I’d be more useful.”

            “No. I mean, why are you still _here_? Why did you stay if you think I feel nothing for you?” Shion asked, leaning against the counter and looking at Nezumi, who finished washing a bowl before turning off the sink and looking back.

            “Just because you feel nothing doesn’t mean I do,” Nezumi replied.

            Shion narrowed his eyes. “So you’re just going to hang around forever.”

            “No. I go back to school next week. I’ve still got another year,” Nezumi said, turning the sink back on again and resoaping the sponge.

            Shion remembered that he had graduated early – Nezumi would have another year left.

            “Were you going to tell me?” Shion asked, surprised that Nezumi had never brought it up.

            “Do you care?” Nezumi asked lightly, not looking up from the pan he was scrubbing, and Shion watched the slow circles of the sponge.

            “I don’t know,” Shion admitted.

            Nezumi’s hand squeezed the sponge, suds spilling out the edges. The smooth circles of the sponge hitched for just a moment, then continued.

            “Right,” Nezumi said, and Shion understood nothing from the tightness of his voice.

            “Are you going to come back after college?”

            “Probably. I have a good job at the theater. I was thinking of dropping out of college altogether.”

            “Why don’t you, if you’re just going to keep the job you got without a degree?” Shion asked, and Nezumi looked at him then, eyebrows creased.

            “You’re telling me to drop out?” he asked.

            “I’m asking why you don’t,” Shion corrected, but he understood Nezumi’s confusion.

            Shion had always been on Nezumi’s back to do well in school, to take it more seriously.

            But that was before. And things had changed.

            Nezumi could do whatever the hell he wanted – it would not like Shion had a say in anything he did anyway.

            Nezumi looked at Shion for a second more, then back at the dishes. “It’ll be good to spend some time away. I need a break.”

            “From me,” Shion replied, not a question but a statement.

            There was a clatter as Nezumi dropped a pot in the sink. “Yes, Shion, from you,” he snapped, glaring at Shion now.

            “Another break,” Shion said, and Nezumi’s jaw flinched.

            “What, are you upset? You don’t even give a shit, Shion. That’s why I need a break, you frustrate the hell out of me, and I’m not even allowed to be pissed off because it’s all my fault, isn’t it?”

            “You don’t have to be here,” Shion pointed out, but he liked Nezumi’s anger.

            It was easier than any other emotion Nezumi might have offered him.

            “Yes, I do! Whether you give a shit about me or not, you’re all I’ve got, and Karan now too. I’ll take your indifference over nothing,” Nezumi snapped.

            This was unexpected. Not only that this was the reason Nezumi was staying, but that he’d even admitted such a thing to Shion at all.

            “You could find someone new,” Shion suggested, after a moment of silence, and Nezumi’s face turned very still, his expression hardening.

            “No, thank you,” he said stiffly, after a moment, and then he stepped away from the sink, which was still running. “I’m going to go now.”

            Shion was fully aware he was hurting Nezumi.

            A part of him hated himself for doing it.

            A part of him felt good.

            Shion wondered how Nezumi had damaged him so much that he didn’t mind hurting people.

            He didn’t say anything, and when Nezumi left, Shion picked up washing the rest of the dishes where Nezumi had left off.

*

Shion stood in Nezumi’s small apartment and watched Nezumi pack his stuff for school.

            “I could help you move in,” he offered. He had considered just ceasing contact with Nezumi altogether, making it easier on the both of them, but it was more natural to be by Nezumi’s side than not, and Shion often just found himself there without intending to be.

            “No, thanks, I’ve got it,” Nezumi replied, standing up from where he’d been stuffing books into a cardboard box.

            “Will you come back for breaks?” Shion asked.

            Nezumi looked at him. “Why do you ask these things if you don’t care?”

            “I’m just making conversation,” Shion said. It was true. He didn’t know what to do with the silences, had forgotten what they used to do with silences – maybe they used to be comfortable, maybe he hadn’t even noticed them before, but now he noticed every inch of them.

            “Don’t,” Nezumi replied shortly.

            Shion crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against Nezumi’s doorway.

            “My mom will miss you.”

            “Didn’t I ask you not to make conversation?” Nezumi asked, angrily.

            “Did you want me to say that I would miss you?” Shion asked, and Nezumi narrowed his eyes, looked more confused than angry now.

            Shion liked peeling back the layers of Nezumi’s patience. Nezumi had come back with so much, whereas Shion had long since run out.

            Shion wanted both of them to be angry. Wanted both of them to be done. He wondered how long it would take, for him to break Nezumi the way Nezumi had broken him.

            Nezumi was holding out longer than Shion had expected. He wondered if instead of breaking Nezumi, he would only manage to change him back to who he was before – someone who hid his emotions rather than displayed them too easily for Shion to read.

            “I don’t know you anymore,” Nezumi said, after a moment.

            Shion uncrossed his arms, slid his hands into his pockets. “No, you don’t,” he replied, and he turned and left Nezumi’s apartment.

            Instead of going home, he took a walk. Didn’t stop until night had fell, and then he returned to his own apartment.

            The stars were bright when Shion looked up before closing his building door, but he felt no inclination to linger his gaze.

            It had been a while, since Shion had been impressed by something beautiful.

*


	6. Chapter 6

Nezumi came home for his winter break, and spent much of it in the bakery.

            One day, Safu was there, cutting flyers for Karan’s New Year’s sale at a table with Shion.

            Nezumi only seemed to notice her after walking over.

            “Safu,” he said, and Shion looked at Safu, who looked up at Nezumi.

            “Hello, Nezumi. How are you?”

            “I’m,” Nezumi started, but he didn’t finish, glanced at Shion instead. “Do you need help?”

            There were just four flyers left, and only two scissors anyway.

            “I think my mom could use you,” Shion offered, and Nezumi nodded, turned away, turned back jerkily.

            “It’s good to see you, Safu,” he said, sounding robotic, and then he walked to the back of the kitchen.

            “Wow,” Safu said, the moment he was gone.

            “What?”

            “He’s quite different.” Safu leaned across the table, reaching for another flyer.

            “I guess,” Shion replied.

            “But then, I suppose you’re quite different too,” Safu mused.

            Shion could think of no reply. He concentrated on cutting in a very straight line.

            “He looks at you in the same way though,” Safu said, after a minute, casually.

            “Hm,” Shion hummed, noncommittally.

            “Shion.”

            “What?” Shion asked, glancing up, seeing that Safu had put down her flyers and scissors completely and was looking at him rather seriously. “What?” he asked again.

            “When are you going to stop making him wait?”

            “Who said I’m making him wait?” Shion asked, taken aback. “Our relationship has been over for a while, I haven’t given him reason to wait for anything.”

            Safu waved a hand as if dismissing Shion’s words. “It’s clear you’re in love with him. I know he deserves to be tortured a little, but I’ve never seen Nezumi like this. He’s giving himself over to you completely, has completely let his guard down – that must be the first time he’s done that for anyone.”   

            “I’m not – ”

            “I’m not saying you have to forgive him right now. Take whatever time you need. I’m just curious, Shion. How long are you going to put Nezumi through this?”

            “I’m not putting him through anything! He’s the one who put me through two years of waiting after he broke my heart with hardly any notice, why am I supposed to just get over it and pity him?”

            Safu shrugged, smiled lightly. “You’re not supposed to, technically. But the only reason Nezumi broke your heart, as you put it, is because he was scared. You should at least have a good reason to break his.”

            “I’m not breaking his heart,” Shion snapped.

            “Clearly, you’re not looking at the same person I just was,” Safu replied, simply.

            “If I could forget everything, how much it hurt, I would, Safu. But I can’t. It’s all I think about when I look at him. It’s all I think about when I talk to him. How he just left. How he didn’t reply once in two years. How he only came back when I was finally moving on. How it was before, and how that seems so impossible because I don’t feel like that anymore, I used to be desperate for him, I used to be obsessed, don’t you remember?”

            Safu’s smile was soft, a bit sad, maybe. “How could I not remember the number of texts you sent me when you were stalking him about how silky his hair was looking that day,” she said, teasing.

            She may have been joking, but she wasn’t far off. Shion remembered how deeply he had fallen for this man, how quickly, how completely. How his heart had raced when he was near Nezumi, when Shion just so much as walked into the library knowing the librarian’s assistant would be there – where was that now?

            Where was any of it now?

            “I feel nothing for him now, Safu. How am I supposed to change that? Why should I even want to?”

            “Because you were happier with him,” Safu replied.

            “My happiness relied on him. That’s not healthy.”

            “So you’re doing this for your health,” Safu said, skeptically.

            “I’m not doing anything! I can’t just make myself feel differently than I do,” Shion protested, voice rising.

            “You could fall in love with him again.”

            “Safu, you cannot just make yourself fall in love with a person.”

            “Why not?” Safu countered, sounding a bit eager now, which worried Shion.

            There was always the possibility of danger, when Safu got an idea.

            “Just backtrack your steps. Start with writing down all of the reasons why you were in love with Nezumi before, and then ask yourself whether the majority of them still apply, and if so, then logically you should still be in love with him,” Safu said, sounding triumphant.

            Shion rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think it’s that easy.”

            “It could be. You’re just difficult, Shion, you know you are,” Safu chastised.

            “I’ve changed. What I liked before, I don’t like now.”

            “You don’t like athletically lithe and fit bodies? You don’t like snow-white skin? You don’t like those intense grey eyes? You don’t like his long eyelashes? You don’t like his dark, silky hair.” 

            Shion raised an eyebrow. “You can date him, if you want,” he offered, smiling a bit, but Safu didn’t laugh.

            “I know your type, Shion.”

            “I don’t have a type!”

            “Nezumi is your type. I’ve heard you go on about him long enough to know that.”

            “I told you, I’ve changed!”

            “It’s very doubtful that what you find aesthetically pleasing has changed so drastically,” Safu corrected.

            “So I should just force myself to like Nezumi based on his looks.”

            “That’s a start. His personality doesn’t seem to have gotten that awful, he was rather polite to me and offered to cut these flyers.”

            “That says nothing about his personality,” Shion argued.

            “Then what does?”

            “He left! He made me feel insignificant, like it had all meant nothing to him!”

            “That was the past. He’s clearly changed too.”

            “How do you know that?” Shion demanded.

            At this, Safu smiled again, this time in a way that made Shion feel as though she found him hopeless. “Because he came back, Shion. Because he’s staying despite your lack of feeling for him.”

            Shion looked down at his half-cut flyer. “I still can’t force myself to care for him.”

            There was silence, and then softly, from Safu, “I suppose not.”

            They resumed cutting the last of the flyers, and changed the topic to Safu’s new coworker, who was in the running for the Nobel Prize.

*

Shion didn’t see much of Nezumi over winter break, and then he was gone again, and he didn’t return for spring break.

            In this time, Shion got a promotion at work.

            At an office party in his honor, Shion invited Safu, who pointed out that one of Shion’s colleagues had a crush on him.

            “You’re making that up,” Shion replied, peering over his wine glass at his coworker.

            “You haven’t noticed? It’s rather obvious,” Safu said, and then she demanded Shion dance with her.

            When a slow song came on and they resorted to swaying, Safu broke their comfortable silence.

            “Would you think about dating someone else?” she asked.

            “Would you?” Shion retorted, and Safu smiled.

            “Maybe. No one seems interesting enough.”

            Shion laughed. “That’s why I’m not dating anyone either.”

            “Either that, or you’re not over Nezumi.”

            “I see that you’ve casually managed to bring up Nezumi again,” Shion said, twirling Safu away from him, then back.

            Safu sighed. “I just want you to be happy, Shion,” she said.

            “And when will you accept that Nezumi is not the solution for that?” Shion asked.

            Safu shrugged. “When all of the evidence stops pointing to him.”

            Shion twirled her again, and then the song changed, and it was a relief that it was something faster and louder, giving Shion an excuse not to reply.

*

The first time Shion saw Nezumi again after his school year ended was on such a hot day that his forehead was wet with sweat after just walking to the grocery store.

            Karan had gone to Nezumi’s graduation a few days earlier, but Shion had a work meeting, couldn’t come.

            His mother asked Shion to try and get out of it, but Shion hadn’t. He knew Nezumi didn’t care for ceremonies anyway. Nezumi was only attending his ceremony for Karan, Shion was certain.

            This time, Shion saw Nezumi in the cereal aisle, reading the side of a box of Cocoa Pebbles.

            Shion slipped his basket from one hand to the other just to give himself something to do, then said, “Hi.”

            Nezumi looked up from the box. “Shion,” he said, again in surprise.

            His hair was in a ponytail. His bangs were long where they fell into a frame around his face – he’d have to cut them soon.

            Shion used to cut them in college, remembered Nezumi sitting with his eyes closed naturally as if he didn’t care, though his hands would always be tensed in fists for the duration of the hair cut.

            “Congratulations on graduating.”

            “Not a big deal,” Nezumi replied, looking back at the cereal box for a second before replacing it on the shelf.

            “Are you back at the theater?”

            “Start again tonight.”

            “It’s nice of your manager to take you back,” Shion said, and Nezumi looked at him again.

            “Can we not do this?” he asked, not angry, just asking.

            “Do what?”

            “Small talk that you don’t want to have.”

            “What do you want me to do, then? Ignore you?” Shion asked, squeezing the handles of his basket in pulses.

            “No.”

            “Then what, Nezumi?” Shion asked, not sure if he was more exasperated or curious as to what Nezumi wanted from him.

            “I don’t know, Shion. I just really can’t stand this.”

            Shion glanced at the row of cereal boxes. He wanted Cheerios.

            “I don’t know what to say,” Shion said. He picked a box of Cheerios off the shelf beside him, placed it in his basket.

            “Yeah,” Nezumi said, after what felt like too long a pause.

            Shion looked up to see Nezumi with a hand through his hair, holding his bangs against the top of his head, his eyes looking too wide in the absence of their shield.

            He looked lost, but Shion had forgotten how to find him.

*

The summer passed into fall.

            Shion saw less and less of Nezumi, mostly running into him only when Shion went to the bakery to help his mother, who was often already being helped by Nezumi.

            They no longer got coffee. Nezumi didn’t meet Shion for his lunch breaks, and Shion didn’t come to Nezumi’s plays.

            They didn’t read together, or talk long into the nights at an empty table by the window after the bakery closed.

            Shion thought this must be what moving on felt like, and he waited to feel some sort of relief.

            When it came to Nezumi, Shion felt as though he was always waiting for something.

*

On a cold day when the last leaves were falling from the skeletons of their trees, Shion didn’t have to wait anymore.

            He finally got the change he’d felt restless for, but it wasn’t the change he wanted.

            It was a phone call from Safu in the middle of the afternoon, and so Shion picked up without any sort of alarm because Safu often called him in the middle of the afternoon, on her way home from work.

            But Safu’s voice was never so small as it was when Shion picked up and greeted her, nor did it ever crack down the middle as it did, nor did it ever trickle off into the sound of quiet crying.

            Shion stood very still with his phone in his hand after hanging up on her. He did not know that he could move, and so he didn’t try.

            His phone rang, at some point, but the first phone call had not gone well, and Shion did not want to chance a second, not that there was anything worse that could happen.

            It rang a second time, then a third, and then his text notifications started going off.

            Shion dropped his phone, sometime during this process.

            He needed to move, and he knew this, but he couldn’t, he really couldn’t.

            If he stayed absolutely still, nothing had to change. He’d used to think this sometimes, times when he’d been so happy he couldn’t bear the thought of letting the feeling end.

            Now was not one of those times. Now he was so terrified he couldn’t stand the thought of letting the feeling solidify.

            He felt his heart quicken, as he stood, and that wasn’t right, he was not moving, his heart should have been relaxed.

            But he felt like he was breaking, so perhaps his heart was quickening in response to his injuries, hastening its pace as if a faster blood flow could at all fix the tears down his sides, his chest, his legs, his shoulders.

            His breathing was shallow, he realized. The room was quiet and his breathing loud and he didn’t know how he hadn’t heard it before – no, he did know how, of course he did, he wasn’t bothering to listen to his breathing because he didn’t care to breathe anymore, what was the purpose of it, how did his own breaths matter at all?

            There was another text notification, some time after the others, interrupting the sound of his breathing, and Shion still didn’t move. He didn’t know how long he hadn’t been moving. He pretended it was no time at all. He pretended it was negative time, time was moving backwards, back before Safu’s call, back before the bakery ran out of eggs, back before the run to the grocery store, back before the red light at the intersection, back before the sleeping truck driver’s foot had fallen heavy on his pedal, back before the truck driver decided to drive all night the night before to make up lost time, back before the snow the previous day that had caused the truck driver to lose time, back before the last batch of muffins were made that used up the last of the eggs.

            There was a knock on the door, which was confusing, because at first Shion thought the noise was coming out of his phone again, but he didn’t have any notifications that sounded like a knock, and so he realized it couldn’t be his phone.

            “Shion.”

            The sound of his name. Soft through the door. Shion closed his eyes. The dark was nice, and he wished he’d closed his eyes earlier.

            The door opened – Shion knew that sound. Footsteps, he knew that sound too.

            “Shion,” and Shion knew that sound too, the quietness of the voice.

            The cool fingers on Shion’s arm – Shion knew them, he knew them, and when he opened his eyes they were watering, and when he blinked he felt tears hot on his cheeks, and the hand on his arm tightened, the fingers digging just a little, not in a bad way.

            “Shion,” Nezumi said again, a third time, and Shion gasped, felt as if he hadn’t been breathing at all even though he’d listened to his own breaths, and when he exhaled it was audible, it sounded a little like a sob, one that tore down the middle just like his body was tearing.

            The hand was moving, and so was Nezumi, and Shion was against his chest, and didn’t mind because Nezumi was solid and Shion felt certain he was not.

            “Why?” Shion asked, when his body was wrapped in Nezumi’s limbs and chest and hair that tickled his forehead.

            There was Nezumi’s hand, in circles on his back, and Shion thought of the circles Nezumi had scrubbed with a sponge along the surface of a pan.

            Shion pretended he could be cleaned. A fresh start. A new beginning where this hadn’t happened, it hadn’t.

            “Why – ” he asked again, but his voice broke before he could shape it around another word.

            “I’m sorry, Shion.”

            Shion’s fingers dug into Nezumi’s shoulder blades. He felt the skin beneath the thin shield of fabric, and he dug into it, hoping to break it, hoping to make this man bleed, hoping to feel the blood over his fingers because blood was warm and Shion felt so cold.

            “Why was it her?” Shion asked, forcing out the words, pressing his forehead into Nezumi’s clavicle, feeling the shudder of his own chest.

            “Shion – ”

            “Why did she get the eggs? Why didn’t you, Nezumi, why wasn’t it you in the car? Why wasn’t it you?” Shion cried, his words melding into each other, and he felt Nezumi stiffen around him, felt the circles on his back halt.

            The grocery store was in walking distance, but it was getting so cold out.

            Shion couldn’t blame the weather. But he could blame this man whose body was tense against his.

            “I don’t know,” Nezumi whispered.

            “Why was it her?” Shion asked again, wanting a different answer, _I don’t know_ wasn’t enough.

            He didn’t get a different answer.

            He didn’t get to go back in time.

*

The trip to the hospital was quick.

            Shion just had to make sure, and after he had, he wished he hadn’t.

            He came back home – not to his apartment, but to his home, to his home where his mother had raised him, had loved him, had taught him everything he knew – and he went to her bed, pretending he had a nightmare, pretending when he climbed under the blanket she would be there, would wrap her arms around him and rub his back and tell him he was safe now.

            Under the blankets, he smelled her still, the sweet floury smell that stuck to her because her bakery was a part of her, and now she was gone, and Shion didn’t know what to do because he was a part of her as well, and that part was gone now too.

            He curled tight into a ball. There was too much space on this bed without her, so he cocooned himself in her blanket, wrapped it tight around his body so that there was no space at all.

            Safu had brought him home from the hospital after Nezumi had taken him there, and Shion didn’t know where either of them were now, but he didn’t care.

            It wasn’t them that he wanted, it was his mother, he just wanted his mother, he was twenty-two years old, but that was just a child still, wasn’t it? And he ached for her, felt hollow for her, whispered her name and knew she would come because she always came, but this time she didn’t.

            It was getting hard to breathe under the blanket, but Shion liked that. He had to work for every inhale, and that distracted him a little, the way his chest was tightening.

            He had never known his mother not to be there when he needed her, but now she wasn’t, and Shion didn’t know what to do, decided to do nothing, closed his eyes and laid there and tried not to feel a thing.

*

“He won’t talk to me.”

            Voices outside the door, outside Shion’s layer of blanket. He didn’t know how long he’d been under there. He’d gotten up twice to pee, taking the blanket with him, keeping his eyes closed and feeling his way around his mother’s room to her bathroom, returning to her bed quickly, curling back into his ball as if he hadn’t moved at all.

            “If he won’t talk to you, he definitely won’t talk to me. He doesn’t want to see me, Safu.”

            “He does. You’re what he needs right now.”

            “I don’t think you understand.”

            “I understand more than either of you do,” Safu said.

            Shion curled tighter. He did not want food. He did not want to move. He did not want anything, and he wished they’d stop asking him.

            He wanted his mother, and if they couldn’t bring him her, what was the point?

            The door opened. Shion blinked in the dark of his blanket, his eyelashes grazing the fabric that didn’t smell so much like his mother anymore.

            There was no voice, but a pressure on the side of the bed, and Shion felt his body angle towards it, sink into it.

            “There’s nothing I can say that will help.”

            Nezumi’s voice came slowly through the blanket. Shion felt each word like a snowflake on his skin, cool and melting.

            Nezumi didn’t say anything else. But he didn’t move either, Shion could tell by the weight on the bed, knew Nezumi must be sitting on the edge of it.

            The weight stayed, and Shion must have fallen asleep because then he was waking, blinking in the dark of his cocoon, and he thought the weight was still there but he wasn’t really sure and didn’t care to check.

            He thought it might be nice to sleep again. There was a slit in his cocoon, so he knew he would not suffocate. He closed his eyes.

*

When Shion woke again, his head was throbbing. He knew he was dehydrated. He did not know how many days had passed, but he did not care to know, because those would be the number of days that his mother was gone, and Shion didn’t want to think about that.

            He realized all of time from then on would be marked by the day of the accident, and that terrified him, and he thought about just going to sleep again but his head wouldn’t stop throbbing, the dull ache keeping him awake until he shifted, sat up, pulled the blanket off of him.

            He swayed on the bed. Felt lightheaded and nauseous and knew there was nothing in him to vomit but then he couldn’t think clearly anymore, was drifting back onto the bed, felt like he was flying and falling all at once.

            He stopped himself from hitting the mattress. Shoved himself up, closed his eyes tight, concentrated on not fainting, opened his eyes again.

            He noticed then, that there was someone else on the bed, lying at the very edge, so close that Shion was unsure how he had not fallen off.

            Nezumi looked incredibly peaceful.

            Shion wanted to be angry at Nezumi for sleeping on his mother’s bed, but he didn’t have the energy for anger, and if he was being honest, he was so relieved to not be alone.

            Shion sat up fully, tried to scoot to the end of the bed, felt his head spin again, and he might have moaned a little but he wasn’t entirely sure what the small sound was, if it was coming from him when it felt like he was hearing it through a tunnel.

            There was a shifting then that wasn’t Shion, or at least, Shion didn’t think it was him, but he wasn’t sure as the whole room was shifting, wasn’t it?

            “Shion.”

            “I – ” Shion’s voice cracked. His throat was dry and he couldn’t summon more words. He tried to meet Nezumi’s eye, as Nezumi was sitting up, but he felt his gaze wavering.

            “Hold on,” Nezumi said, and then he was gone, and Shion tried not to let himself lie down again because he didn’t know if he’d be able to get up.

            The room was quiet without Nezumi, and Shion thought he could hear the walls humming, and then Nezumi was back and Shion didn’t have to think about the walls humming anymore.

            “Can you hold this?” Nezumi asked, and he was holding out a glass, Shion realized, only after he opened his eyes which had apparently closed.

            Shion took the cup, but the weight was more than he expected and his fingers were late to tighten around it and he dropped it.

            “Oh.”

            “It’s fine,” Nezumi said, and he was gone again, and Shion wished he hadn’t dropped the cup because he hated being alone, it was so quiet when he was alone, he almost started crying but his head hurt too much to do anything.

            The bed sank before Shion realized Nezumi was back again, and he opened his eyes, wondering how he kept closing them without noticing.

            “Remember to swallow,” Nezumi said, and his voice was very soft like cotton, and the cup was very cool on Shion’s lips when Nezumi placed it there.

            Shion remembered to swallow. The feeling was stranger than he remembered it being, what with his throat so dry, but after a few sips he got the hang of it, realized how thirsty he was, downed the glass quickly then.

            “Can I – ”

            Nezumi didn’t wait for his question, left immediately and was back with more water, and Shion was grateful because he didn’t want to speak, he didn’t want to hear his own voice again, it didn’t sound quite right in his ears.

            After three glasses, Shion dried his lips with the back of his hand, looked blearily at Nezumi.

            “I don’t know what to do,” Shion confessed, after a moment of trying to figure out what to say.

            Nezumi nodded as if it Shion was making sense. “Can I cook you something?”

            Shion shook his head without thinking about it. He knew, logically, that he needed food. But the emptiness had gotten familiar, the ache of it, and Shion worried that the ache would stay even after he had eaten, and then how would he ever get rid of it?

            “Okay,” Nezumi said, but he got up anyway, and Shion wished he wouldn’t, wished he would just stay – he hated being alone for these small moments, he absolutely hated it.

            “Nezumi?” he whispered, after Nezumi had already left.

            Shion laid down again. Closed his eyes. They felt wet. The bed was warm where he lay, where Nezumi had been asleep beside him.

            “Shion, come, sit up,” Nezumi was saying, and Shion opened his eyes, found Nezumi kneeling in front of the bed, was so relieved to not be alone anymore in this bed that was too big.

            Nezumi was holding a plate with a piece of toast and a handful of chocolate chips.

            Shion sat up.

            “I’ll match you. For each bite of toast you eat, I’ll take one too. That way, it’ll finish faster. Same with the chocolate. How does that sound?” Nezumi asked, gentle, gentle.

            Shion reached out, took the toast. Nezumi had buttered it, so it was softer, not so hard to get down, but he could only chew slowly, and swallowing was still not as easy as it should have been.

            Nezumi took the toast from Shion’s hand, took a bite himself, and Shion watched him chew before he gave the toast back.

            They exchanged it back and forth in silence, and Shion was grateful that Nezumi had made this deal, as it would have been too much food otherwise.

            To share it was easier, took a small burden off.

            The chocolate chips were next, and these were easier. Shion felt the sluggishness falling off.

            “You can have the rest,” Nezumi offered, after he’d only eaten three, and Shion didn’t protest, was glad to finish them.

            “What now?” Shion asked, liking that Nezumi was deciding, liking that he didn’t have to make decisions, he didn’t have to think.

            “Shower?” Nezumi asked.

            Shion glanced at the bathroom.

            “Maybe in your own bathroom,” Nezumi said quietly, and Shion nodded, slid off the bed and Nezumi stayed close as Shion left his mother’s room.

            The air in the hallway was cooler, refreshing. Shion made it to the bathroom without feeling faint, was grateful that Nezumi had made him eat.

            “I’ll wait out here,” Nezumi said, outside the doorway after Shion had gone in, and Shion stared at him.

            “Please come in,” he said, and his voice was smaller than he’d meant it to be.

            Nezumi hesitated, then nodded, followed Shion and closed the seat of the toilet before sitting on it.

            Shion felt as though he should explain himself, searching for the words, fidgeting with the hem of his t-shirt.

            “It’s too quiet when I’m alone,” he offered, helplessly, and Nezumi did not look at him as if he was strange.

            “I know,” Nezumi said, and Shion started taking off his clothing after turning on the water and giving it time to turn warm.

            There was nothing sexual in undressing in front of Nezumi. Not now. When he almost tripped pulling off his jeans, Nezumi was there, hands on his shoulders, steadying him.

            “It’s okay, I’ll help you,” Nezumi offered, and Shion stood still as Nezumi bent, pulled down his jeans and boxers, told Shion to brace himself with his hands on Nezumi’s shoulders before lifting each leg and removing the clothing.

            Shion thought again about what day it might be, how long he had gone without food, but he didn’t ask. He stepped into the shower, braced a hand against the wall, pulled the curtain closed, and lifted his face to the spray.

            The warm water was lovely. Shion opened his mouth to it, liked how it coated his hair, weighed him down, spilled over his skin and reminded him that he was still solid.

            He did not leave the shower until the water turned cold. He turned off the spray, wishing he had turned it off earlier because the cold water had quickly washed away the heat of the warm spray it had replaced. He opened the curtain, reached for his towel on the hook next to him.

            Nezumi was still sitting on the closed toilet lid. He’d pulled his hair into a bun and had his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. He looked up as Shion opened the curtain.

            “I’ll bring you clean clothes.”

            “Don’t – ”

            “Count to ten, and I’ll be back,” Nezumi said, and then he was gone, and Shion counted with his eyes closed, holding his towel tight in his fists.

            He made it to eight when there was Nezumi’s voice again.

            “I’m here. Dry yourself quickly, you’re shivering.”

            Shion hadn’t noticed. He dried himself jerkily, then let Nezumi help him dress in sweats and a loose sweater.

            When Shion blinked up at Nezumi, Nezumi took the towel from his hands, ran it a few times through Shion’s hair, then rehung it on its hook.

            He gathered Shion’s worn clothing from the floor of the bathroom, and Shion followed him into his bedroom where Nezumi deposited the clothing into the hamper. Shion looked out the window, could not tell if the sun was rising or setting.

            “Come,” Nezumi said, leaving Shion’s room, and Shion followed him down the stairs into the kitchen, where Nezumi pointed to a chair, and Shion obediently fell into it.

            He sat with his hands between his thighs and watched Nezumi put water into a kettle.

            “She’s always been there, Nezumi,” Shion confessed. “I don’t know how to live without her.”

            Nezumi sat across from him at the table, leaned forward. “I know.”

            Shion covered his face in his hands. Breathed in and out of the spaces between his fingers.

            “I’ll never talk to her again. I’ll never hug her again. I’ll never – ” Shion broke off, pressed his fingers harder against his face, the lids of his eyes, felt the tips of them grow wet.

            Nezumi didn’t say anything when Shion began to cry, and Shion was glad for it.

            There was nothing Nezumi could say that would make him better.

            It was enough, that Nezumi sat across from him, that Nezumi didn’t leave.

            It was everything.

*

During the funeral, Shion tried to say something, but could get no words out after, _I loved her._

            Safu led him away from the podium, and Shion sat beside Nezumi as Safu went back up and said words in his place.

            During the burial, Shion felt a hand in his, and when he looked to his side and saw it was Nezumi, he wasn’t disappointed.

            He squeezed the hand tight, so tight it must have hurt, but Nezumi didn’t complain.

*

Shion had basically moved into his mother’s house again, but slept in his old room rather than Karan’s after the first time. He had just come home from his first day back at work, walked straight to the kitchen, and decided to make pie.

            He had been overcome at work with a craving for it. He was never good at baking, but he would try. The bakery hadn’t been opened since the car accident a week and a half before, and Shion didn’t know if he would ever open it.

            He wanted to. He knew his mother would have wanted him to. But the idea of the bakery running without his mother in it seemed so strange, so awful, that Shion didn’t let himself think about it for too long periods of time.

            He was mixing the flour and sugar when he heard a ding that signaled the opening of the bakery door, and then there was Nezumi, walking into the kitchen.

            “Hi,” Nezumi said.

            “I wanted cherry pie,” Shion replied. He did not mind that Nezumi walked into the bakery without notice. The bakery felt as much Nezumi’s as it was Shion’s, and Shion knew Karan would have agreed.

            Nezumi nodded, grabbed an apron, and didn’t say a word as he joined Shion, correcting Shion silently when it came to measuring the water, and Shion remembered that Nezumi had been taking private lessons with his mother.

            After they put the pie in the oven, they left the kitchen to sit in the bakery, Nezumi bringing them mugs of tea.

            Shion cupped his hands around his mug, looked out the window, and it was a while before he spoke.

            “Does it ever go away?” Shion asked, quietly, not looking away from the window.

            “Does what go away, Shion?” Nezumi asked, just as soft.

            Shion swallowed, looked down at his mug. It was empty by now. “The ache. How much it hurts. Does it get better?” Shion asked, and he looked up at Nezumi then.

            Nezumi, who had lost his entire family in a fire when he was just a boy.

            Nezumi, who had been alone in his life more than he hadn’t.

            Nezumi looked sad, but of course he did. He had lost someone too when Karan died, and Shion knew that.

            “No,” Nezumi said, and Shion felt his chest constrict. “But sometimes you can forget. For just moments at first. And then for an hour or two. And then for days. For months, even, you can forget how much it hurts. And you feel awful for it, but you also feel incredible, and how can you say no to that? Sometimes someone comes and makes you forget that you’re not supposed to be happy, and how can you turn away from that?” Nezumi asked, and his eyes were almost pleading, and Shion bit the inside of his cheek, blinked quickly.

            “You turned away from it,” Shion said, but it was not an accusation. It was a realization, more than anything. Of how hard it must have been, for Nezumi to leave him, to transfer colleges, to ignore every single one of his texts for two years.

            “I regret it every single day, Shion,” Nezumi said, and Shion inhaled deeply, held the air in his lungs and didn’t want to let it go, scared of the words that might come out with it, scared of the words that might not come out.

            “I can’t do this now,” he managed, when he finally had to let his breath go, and Nezumi nodded.

            “I know. I don’t want you to,” Nezumi said, and Shion believed him.

            They sat in a more comfortable silence than Shion had felt in a while until the timer went off for the pie, and then they took it out of the oven and split it between themselves, eating past the point where they both felt sick, finishing every crumb even after they didn’t want another bite.

            It felt important, somehow, at least to Shion, to finish this pie, and though he knew Nezumi must have felt overly stuffed as well, the man said nothing, matched every forkful that Shion ate until the pan was clean.

*

The fourth night Nezumi came into the bakery to find Shion crying in his mother’s room was a month after the accident, and the first time either of them said anything to the other.

            On the three previous occasions like these, Nezumi had merely sat with Shion until the latter stopped crying and then made Shion a cup of tea.

            This time, when Shion stopped crying, he did not follow Nezumi wordlessly into the kitchen, but caught Nezumi’s wrist when the man tried to stand up.

            They sat with their backs against Karan’s bed. Shion hadn’t gone on top of it since the time he had spent three days under her blanket without moving.

            “Nezumi,” Shion said, and he let go of Nezumi’s wrist to wipe at his eyes once more with the back of his hands.

            Nezumi sat back down, eyes searching Shion’s expression.

            Shion took a breath. Wanted to look away but didn’t. “When you found me after it happened, I told you – I said I wished it was you who had died – ”

            “Shion – ”

            “Let me finish. I said I wished it was you, and maybe at the moment I meant it, I think I did, Nezumi,” Shion said, and he took a breath, watched the hardening of Nezumi’s expression, the jerkiness of Nezumi’s nod.

            “It’s okay – ”

            “I’m not done,” Shion interrupted, and he thought about reaching out, taking Nezumi’s hand, feeling the cool fingers between his own, but he didn’t.

            He kept his hands in his lap, but he leaned forward, just a little.

            “I don’t wish that anymore. I don’t know how to tell you how much I appreciate you being here, Nezumi. I know I’m not who you want me to be anymore. But thank you for staying. Thank you for getting me through this.”

            Nezumi looked down at his lap. His hair spilled across his shoulders.

            He was beautiful, and Shion still noticed it, often in moments that surprised him.

            Shion didn’t know if he loved Nezumi.

            But love didn’t seem so important anymore. He needed Nezumi, and he knew this, and this was enough. To have this man here was enough, was more than enough, and Shion was grateful for him, only wanted Nezumi to know this.

            Nezumi looked up, then. Shion couldn’t read his expression, and this was new, something Shion hadn’t failed to do since before Nezumi came back after those two absent years with his emotions on his sleeve.

            “You’re welcome, Shion,” he said, and Shion waited for him to say something else, was certain he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t.

            Shion felt disappointed without knowing why.

            He didn’t know what he wanted from Nezumi. He didn’t know if he wanted anything but the man’s presence, keeping him from being alone.

            Shion wondered, vaguely, if it was selfish to only want a warm body and give nothing in return.

*


	7. Chapter 7

At nights, Shion had begun taking sleeping pills again. He hadn’t made a conscious decision, instead had just taken them starting the night after the funeral as if he’d never stopped.

            Two months after the accident, Shion realized he was out of pills. He’d meant to pick up more on the way home from work, and sat in bed staring at the empty bottle for a long moment before lying down, closing his eyes, then opening them back after only a minute and getting out of bed.

            He didn’t bother changing, put on shoes and grabbed his coat and was out the door, heading to the local convenience store.

            It was midnight and closed. Shion stood outside the door for a moment, tried to think of a nearby 24-hour pharmacy, but his town was small, and Shion had never seen a 24-hour shop in all his time living there, unlike the pharmacies at his campus university.

            Shion walked back to the bakery, stood in front of it, but knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep without pills.

            He stood for a minute or two, hardly noticing the cold of the night, then walked to his apartment.

            It had been two months since he’d slept there, but Shion still leased the place. His mother had owned the bakery, so he didn’t have to pay two mortgages, and he didn’t see a reason to get rid of his apartment.

            He’d be moving back into it. He just needed time.

            In his apartment, Shion searched for sleeping pills, found an empty bottle at the back of a drawer in his nightstand, but that was it.

            He looked at the time, saw it was nearly half past one. He sat on the edge of his bed, and though he was vaguely tired, the issue wasn’t falling asleep.

            Shion was terrified of nightmares. Had seen Nezumi in the throws of many, feared his own desperation would seize him when he lost consciousness.

            Even worse, Shion feared that he would become addicted to his unconscious musings. That he would dream of his mother, that he would never wish to be awake, that he every morning he would be forced to leave her again, that he would begin to look forward only to the nights.

            Sleeping pills let him have a dreamless sleep. They were safe. Shion thought he used to be braver, but that was long ago, before he knew what loss was, before he knew how it could ache, how it would keep aching.

            Shion sat and watched the clock until it hit two. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, and at the new hour stood and walked around his apartment once before leaving it.

            He didn’t think about where he was going, didn’t really notice, but when he saw Nezumi’s apartment building in front of him, he was not surprised.

            Shion let himself in. The buzzer was broken, had been for a while.

            He climbed the steps to Nezumi’s floor, walked down the hall to Nezumi’s apartment, knocked on Nezumi’s door and thought of how Nezumi knocked once on his door back in college, back when Shion felt whole and took care of Nezumi, back when comfort came easily because Shion wasn’t the one who needed comforting.

            He knocked again when there was no reply. A large part of Shion didn’t want Nezumi to answer. He had no idea what he would say if Nezumi did come to the door.

            He just wanted to sleep.

            When Shion was about to leave, he heard the lock sliding on the other side of the door, and then the door was opening and there was Nezumi, careworn with sleep, his eyes slightly ringed with red and his hair disheveled.

            Shion guessed he’d woken the man up from a nightmare of his own.

            “Hi,” Shion said, as Nezumi blinked at him, rubbing his hair out of his eyes with a clumsy palm.

            “Shion.”

            “Do you have sleeping pills? I know you don’t use them, but I was hoping…” Shion didn’t know how to finish his sentence. He didn’t know what he was hoping for. He knew Nezumi didn’t have pills because Nezumi didn’t like pills. Nezumi wanted to remember, wanted to see his family, but Shion was too scared that sleep would become the place he was happiest if it was where he might see his mother again.

            “I don’t have any,” Nezumi said, and his voice was small and soft with sleep.

            “Oh. That’s fine, I’m sorry for waking – ”

            “You can sleep here,” Nezumi interrupted. He cleared his throat. “With me.”

            Shion stepped out of Nezumi’s doorway. “I didn’t come here to – ”

            “It helps, to be next to someone. It’s warm. That’s all,” Nezumi said.

            Shion rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.

            He was exhausted. He wanted to sleep, he just wanted to sleep.

            “Okay,” he whispered, after a second, and Nezumi stared at him as if he hadn’t heard him before turning, walking away from the door, and Shion followed him, closing and locking Nezumi’s door behind him.

            He followed Nezumi to his bedroom, watched Nezumi get into bed, stood very still and then abruptly took off his jacket and toed off his shoes in quick motions.

            “I only have one pillow, but you can use it. I don’t need it.”

            “That’s really okay,” Shion said, walking around the bed to the other side, sitting on the edge of it before slipping his legs underneath the blanket.

            It was warm from Nezumi’s body, and Shion sank into the mattress, feeling himself relax.

            “Take it,” Nezumi said, pushing the pillow so that Shion had no choice but to lift his head, allow it underneath him.

            “Thank you.”

            “Of course. Goodnight, Shion.”

            “Goodnight,” Shion said. He laid on his back and stared at Nezumi’s ceiling, listening to Nezumi fidget into place beside him before Nezumi was still as well.

            Shion held his breath, and he could hear Nezumi’s breathing. He turned his head, saw that Nezumi had settled with his back to Shion, but Shion knew the position was unlikely to last.

            The man usually moved recklessly in his sleep, had turned Shion into a deep sleeper, able to ignore kicks and prods and unconsciously whispered pleas, at least most of the time.

            It was achingly familiar to sleep beside Nezumi, and Shion felt his eyes closing immediately. He fought for only a moment, then let unconsciousness take him.

*

Shion knew the weight of Nezumi’s limbs, and when he woke, he remembered immediately where he was, why he was there, and who he was with, but he was confused about the absence of the weight of these limbs.

            Nezumi’s body was not at all draped over, intertwined with, or touching Shion’s body at all, and Shion glanced to his side, faintly surprised.

            Nezumi often clung to him when he slept, and Shion figured it was a subconscious desire to hold on to those who were leaving him in his nightmares.

            Beside Shion, Nezumi was in a tight ball, back curled away from Shion. Shion stared for a moment, almost alarmed by how small the man’s body looked, wrapped in on itself. The blanket was completely off of him, covered Shion totally, and Shion felt bad but also bemused, as Nezumi always used to hog the blankets.

            No wonder he was curled so tight. He must have been freezing, and Shion loosened the blanket from under his own body, draped it over Nezumi’s, glad not to have to see the pebbles of Nezumi’s spine digging into the fabric of his t-shirt anymore.

            Shion slid out of bed then, stretched and grabbed his coat and shoes.

            He left Nezumi’s apartment silently, forgetting to leave a note, though when he thought of it halfway into his walk home, he figured he was better off having forgotten.

            He had no idea what he could have written in it, anyway.

*

For the next two weeks, it became an unspoken ritual for Shion to sleep in Nezumi’s bed.

            It was done almost without comment, Shion showing up at Nezumi’s door, usually late at night, and Nezumi letting him in, offering him his pillow until they realized it was easier to share it, it was big enough.

            Shion did not dream when he was in Nezumi’s bed, nor did he have nightmares. He did not know why this happened, but he did not care.

            Nezumi was right. It helped to sleep beside a warm body, and so Shion did not stop.

            He noticed that Nezumi always slept in his tight ball, and wondered where the thrashing had gone, the occasional shouts, the hiccupped sobs.

            He didn’t say anything to Nezumi, but that was because they didn’t talk when they were in bed.

            They didn’t do anything but sleep, until the fifteenth night.

            “Nezumi,” Shion whispered, twenty minutes after being let in by the man and following him to his bed.

            Nezumi stirred beside him, uncurling from his ball and turning around to face Shion.

            “Do you still love me?” Shion asked, and he could see glint of Nezumi’s eyes appearing and disappearing when the man blinked.

            “What?” Nezumi asked, voice thick with sleep.

            “If you don’t, I was thinking, we could have sex. Obviously it’s a horrible idea if you still do. But if not, it could be nice. To feel only pleasure for a little bit. To forget everything else. Only if you want,” Shion said, and Nezumi’s limbs shuffled beside him, heavy movements.

            “Sex,” Nezumi echoed, like it was the only word he had heard.

            Shion nodded, cheek rubbing against the pillow they shared.

            “It’s been two and a half months since my mother died. I’ve felt like I’ve been drowning ever since. I just want to feel something else. Just for a little bit,” Shion said, and Nezumi leaned up then, propping his head on his hand, elbow digging into the mattress.

            “But only if I don’t love you anymore,” Nezumi echoed, voice toneless, and Shion leaned up as well, mirrored Nezumi’s position.

            “It would be cruel, if you still loved me. I wouldn’t ask you for this,” Shion said.

            His eyes had adjusted to the dark by then, and he could make out the details of Nezumi’s face.

            The curves of his cheekbones, the length of his eyelashes, the way his eyes fell all around Shion’s face before lingering only between Shion’s own eyes.

            “Okay,” Nezumi said, his voice a bit less sleepy. “Let’s have sex.”

            Shion didn’t bother thinking about whether he felt surprise or not, disappointment or not, relief or not.

            He thought only of what came next, and that was leaning forward, that was feeling Nezumi’s long fingers over his cheek, that was lying down on his back and Nezumi hovering over him, that was taking Nezumi’s hand from where it had slipped up under Shion’s t-shirt and placing it over his boxers instead, because Shion was ready, eager, wanted this man now, wanted to feel something incredible _now._

            Nezumi did not miss a beat. Touched Shion first over the fabric of his boxers and then slipped inside, and Shion rose up to meet his touch, wanted more of it, wanted more than this, pulled away from Nezumi only to pull his boxers off his waist, shove them as far down on his thighs as he could reach.

            He let Nezumi sit up, take his boxers off fully, then sat up himself, pulled off his t-shirt while Nezumi undressed himself.

            Nezumi was back quickly, body draped over Shion’s, and it was familiar but it was also not, this man had grown since they were young and eager.

            They were still young, but there was no pretense of emotion. There was just physical need, just touch and only touch, and when Nezumi’s lips finally found Shion’s the kisses were not soft but hard and desperate, and Shion was hard and desperate back.

            He wanted Nezumi to hurt him. He wanted Nezumi to give him pleasure and pain wrapped so tightly together that he would never be able to separate them again, that from then on any ache would be accompanied by some intense burst of warmth that made it easier to bear.

            When Nezumi was inside of him, Shion wound his legs around the man and shoved himself as hard as he could against Nezumi’s body. Wanted more and more and more, and Nezumi seemed to know this, did not hold back, and they were sweating and slick and slippery and too hot and exhausted but they did not stop.

            There was perhaps not enough pain to cancel the ache in Shion’s chest, but there was a good deal of pleasure to make him forget it, for a while, and Shion would take that.

*

They began having sex nightly, and sometimes twice, and sometimes in the morning after waking.

            Safu asked Shion once what he was doing, and Shion replied that he wasn’t doing anything.

            “He loves you,” Safu said, as they got lunch together and filled each other in on each others’ lives. Safu had gotten a promotion at work, had less and less time to herself, and this was the first time Shion had seen her in a month.

            He had been having sex with Nezumi again for two weeks.

            “He said he didn’t. I asked him,” Shion replied, chewing on a French fry.

            “He’s lying, and you know that.”

            Shion didn’t reply.

            Maybe he did know that, but maybe he was wrong, and maybe he didn’t care.

            If Nezumi wasn’t bothered, why should Shion be?

            “You’re using him.”

            “He knows how I feel,” Shion replied. “I’m not lying to him.”

            “You’re being an asshole, Shion,” Safu snapped, and Shion leaned back.

            “Because I’m having casual sex?” he demanded.

            “No, because you’re hurting someone who cares about you. Who is so in love with you. You’re hurting him, and you know you are, and you don’t care. I don’t care that he left you, Shion. That was a long time ago, and he’s a different person, and he’s been nothing but good for you. He was there for you every day when you needed him after the accident, and this is what you do? Use him without any care about the consequences?”

            “There are no consequences! I’m not leading him on in any way,” Shion argued, angry with Safu for not feeling happy that Shion was finally feeling something other than lost, other than drowning.

            “No consequences? What about when he gets fed up with this? When he has had enough? Nezumi is clearly willing to do a lot more for you than a rational person would, but he does have a breaking point, Shion, and you’re really pushing him to it. What are you going to do when he leaves, Shion?”

            Shion didn’t reply. He was no longer angry with Nezumi for leaving him. That seemed like lifetimes ago, insignificant now. Shion hardly even remembered when he’d used to think Nezumi was his world, when his heart used to quicken around the man.

            Now, he only felt calmer near Nezumi. Peaceful. He no longer thought about Nezumi every moment of the day, but only when he was around Nezumi, only when he needed the man.

            “You won’t care, will you?” Safu asked, and Shion focused back on her.

            “What?”

            “You won’t care if he leaves you again. Maybe you even want him to.”

            “Why would I want that?” Shion asked, bewildered.

            “So you don’t fall in love with him and risk losing him again.”

            “I’m not going to fall in love with him!” Shion nearly shouted, then lowered his voice. “Seriously, Safu, you have to get over that. We’re different people now. Everything is different now.”

            “Your mother would hate what you’re doing to him,” Safu snapped, crossing her arms over her chest, and Shion stared at her, feeling winded.

            “My mother isn’t here, and I’d appreciate if you didn’t use her to get me to do what you want,” he finally said, noticing how cold his voice was, noticing Safu’s flinch, and he hated this, hated fighting with his childhood friend, but then he was standing up and he was leaving the restaurant and he was not turning back.

            Shion knew he was pushing Safu away. He knew he was breaking Nezumi. He knew what he was doing, but he didn’t know how to stop.

            At least when he was angry and at least during sex, he could forget about the ache in his chest, and Shion cared only about that, nothing else mattered, nothing else mattered, nothing else mattered.

*


	8. Chapter 8

It was morning, and they had just finished having sex. Nezumi was still lying in bed, but Shion had gotten up, was pulling on his clothing.

            “It’s a weekend. You don’t work.”

            “So?” Shion asked, glancing at Nezumi on the bed. He was lying on his back, and his chest was still heaving. He had a hand in his bangs, was pulling them from his face.

            “You could stay a bit. You don’t have to rush out.”

            Shion said nothing, continued dressing, then stood and looked at Nezumi again.

            Nezumi had his hand over his eyes now, but he spoke as if he knew Shion was looking at him.

            “I lied when I said I didn’t love you,” he said, still not moving his hand from his eyes. “But you already know that.”

            Shion bit the inside of cheek, rolled the skin between his teeth, bit down hard enough to feel a sting. “Do you want to stop?”

            “No,” Nezumi said, quietly.

            Shion curled his fingers into fists. “Why did you say that then? What was the point?”

            Nezumi moved his hand then, turned his head just so that he could meet Shion’s eye. He didn’t look sad. The grey was flat and even. “I figured someone should be telling the truth. Might get confusing otherwise, with all these lies we’re telling.”

            “I haven’t lied to you.”

            At this, Nezumi blinked, a crease between his eyebrows. “No, you haven’t,” he mused, as if tasting the words, then turned his face back to the ceiling. “We’re both being honest, then. That’s good. I never liked lying to you.”

            “Look, if you want to stop, we’ll stop,” Shion said, getting angry.

            Nezumi was starting an argument for no reason. They didn’t have to talk about this.

            What was the point of feelings, anyway? Why couldn’t they just have pleasure, why couldn’t they just have touch, why did they have to think about what they felt at all?

            “I don’t want to stop, Your Majesty,” Nezumi said, softly, and Shion stiffened at the old nickname, at the warmth it pooled in his chest, at the way the ache was muted, for just a moment.

            He felt his eyes burning, and he didn’t know why, but crying had become normal by then, he supposed.

            “I have to go,” Shion said, voice quieter than he’d intended, and he was almost out of Nezumi’s room when Nezumi’s hand gripped his wrist.

            Shion turned, saw that the man had gotten out of bed, was still naked and standing closer to Shion than he should have been.

            “Shion.”

            “Yeah?” Shion breathed. He could have stepped back but he didn’t. He could feel the heat from Nezumi’s body as if it was on his own, still warm from sleep and sex.

            He wanted to reach out, touch the man’s skin. Run his fingers over this body he knew better than his own because he’d taken the time to explore it, to taste it, to learn it.

            Nezumi lifted a hand, touched Shion’s cheek, ran his thumb over Shion’s scar, then tilted Shion’s head forward until their foreheads touched, and Shion didn’t know how to pull away because Nezumi’s exhales were warm over his face, trickled over his lips, felt lovely, lovely, lovely.

            “I miss you,” Nezumi whispered, and Shion couldn’t tell if their lips were touching, could feel every syllable of Nezumi’s whisper but did not know if it was from skin or breath.

            He didn’t care. He wanted more, more of this touch, more of the exhales that had whirled in Nezumi’s lungs.

            When Nezumi kissed him, Shion felt it deep in his body, felt it rise up, prickle through his veins, stick to his skin. It was slow and shallow and nothing like the kisses exchanged when they fucked without feeling on Nezumi’s bed. 

            This was only feeling, every feeling, and Shion didn’t want more feeling, had too many feelings and was sick of feelings and hated feelings and wanted only numbness, wanted only indifference, especially when it came to this man.

            But he couldn’t pull away. He stood very still, thought maybe if he did not move then time would not pass and he could have this kiss forever, nothing else would exist, and wouldn’t that be amazing?

            When Nezumi pulled away, it was too soon. Shion knew that his face was dotted with a few tears that had escaped, but he didn’t have a chance to wipe them, as there were Nezumi’s fingers, drifting over his face like they belonged there.

            “Come back,” Nezumi murmured, as if Shion was the one who had pulled away, but Shion knew that was not what Nezumi meant.

            Shion knew what Nezumi was asking, because it was what Shion had asked with every single one of his texts for two years.

            _Come back to me._ _Don’t forget me._

            Shion didn’t want to remember. Didn’t want to remember how much he loved this man because what was the point? Nezumi would just be another person to lose, and Shion didn’t want that, had lost him once and couldn’t do it again, had lost his mother and he refused to lose anyone else.           

            It should have been easier to feel nothing, but nothing about this was easier, nothing about watching Nezumi break in front of him was easier – maybe he’d been satisfied before, but that was when he was angry, and Shion wasn’t angry anymore.

            He was just in pain. He was just broken too.

            “I’m not who you want, Nezumi. I don’t know how to be. I don’t remember,” Shion said back, his voice shaking.

            He used to take care of Nezumi. He used to make the man laugh into Shion’s sleeve, he used to make the man’s lips twitch in smiles Nezumi was hiding.

            Shion didn’t know how to do that anymore. Knew only how to make Nezumi’s jaw clench, face harden, eyes go flat.

            “I’ll help you remember,” Nezumi said, and he kissed Shion again, and Shion didn’t mind, kissed back, felt soft when Nezumi kissed him, felt better.

            Shion didn’t know if he loved this man.

            But he thought, if he tried, he might be able to like him again, so easily, so naturally, if only he let himself.

            He hadn’t wanted to let himself feel anything for Nezumi. Not when Nezumi came back. Not when his mother died.

            But he couldn’t shake Safu’s words from the other day, warning Shion that he was pushing Nezumi away, warning Shion that one day, Nezumi might leave again.

            And Shion realized he didn’t want that. He was more terrified of being alone than of letting himself feel something again, and so he didn’t stop himself, when Nezumi kissed him with too warm lips, from feeling everything.

*

They were not friends.

            Shion wasn’t sure anymore that they ever had been.

            But they kissed in between sentences when they couldn’t think of anymore words, and they found each other at strange hours of the night when they should have been sleeping.

            They did not go out for lunch, but they baked at early hours of the morning and ate until they were sick.

            They did not call each other on their commutes to and from work, but they took walks when it was still too cold out, knowing that the colder they became, the warmer they’d feel later, wrapped in the other’s body.

            When they fucked, Shion tore too hard at Nezumi’s skin, broke it with his fingernails and didn’t feel remorse.

            When they made love, Shion felt melted and spilled open and exposed and hated it and needed it at the same time.

            Sometimes they went without talking but for small greetings and goodbyes for days, and other nights they talked until three kettles had been filled and emptied.

            It took Shion a while to realize he was learning to trust Nezumi again. He had never had to learn such a thing before – trust used to be easy, immediate.

            So had love, and compassion, and appreciation, but Shion had been emptied of all of this, had to grow it all back, and Nezumi had more patience than Shion thought possible.

            In the mornings, Shion often woke before Nezumi to see the man curled tight in a ball beside him, even on nights when they had fallen asleep in tangled limbs. One morning, Shion reached out, touched each pebble of Nezumi’s spine, felt the smooth hardness of each under his fingertips until Nezumi woke, shifted, rolled over and caught Shion’s eyes with his own.

            The grey was sleepy and faded and lovely, and Shion thought he might have smiled at such a sight so easily before, but now he only bit the inside of his cheek.

            “Why do you sleep like that?” Shion asked.

            “Like what?” Nezumi asked back. His voice was tiny like a child’s.

            “You don’t thrash around anymore. Did the nightmares stop?”

            Nezumi blinked in what looked like confusion, the fogginess slipping from his eyes with each blink. His features were soft in the morning – gentle cheekbones and swampy eyes, muted lips and muffled movements when he lifted his hand to tuck his bangs behind an ear.

            “No. They’ve been different.”

            “What are they about now?” Shion asked. He moved a hand so that it was between his and Nezumi’s chests. He could have reached out, caught the man’s fingers in his own, but he didn’t know how to quite yet.

            “They’re not about the losing part anymore. The fire. The burning. They’re about the after part, when I’d already been alone for a bit. How cold it was. The ache.”

            Shion prodded the mattress between them with his fingers in a rhythm that was jolty and mismatched.

            “If you took pills, they’d go away. If you don’t see your family anymore, then what’s the point of putting yourself through that?”

            When Nezumi blinked, it was so slowly that Shion thought he was falling asleep again, but then the grey was back, faint and sweet and reminded Shion of the smell of vanilla in a way that hardly made sense even to himself.

            “I’m waiting for them to change again. Into dreams this time, maybe. Into the before part, before the fire, before anything,” Nezumi said, and Shion stared at this man who used to be so different.

            Who used to care about now and only now, who did not waste time hoping for the future or acknowledging the past.

            “Do you ever dream of me?” Shion asked, and at this, Nezumi smiled a sleepy smile, the sight so unexpected, so amazing to Shion that his heart stuttered a bit, confused.

            “I don’t need to anymore,” Nezumi replied, and then he did close his eyes, and Shion did not remind him that they both had work.

            Instead, he closed his eyes too, and focused on not falling asleep, on instead just listening to Nezumi’s breathing, matching his own breaths to that of the man beside him.

            He wanted to hold out his hand, cup it over Nezumi’s heart, match their pulses as well, but he curled his fingers back to his own chest, held them still.

            Not yet, he decided. Later – they had time.

*

Half a year after his mother died, Shion decided to sell the bakery.

            The decision came to him at work, in a meeting, hit him like a punch and he felt his eyes burning – the first time in a while, a little more than a while.

            He blinked quickly, tried to breathe. He didn’t have to sell it, he tried to convince himself, but now that the thought was there he felt some sort of obligation.

            The bakery was sitting there, unused. It had been full of life, but now there was just Shion and Nezumi, and they hardly baked anymore, they hardly went in.

            Shion had started sleeping back in his old apartment – though only rarely, as most nights he was at Nezumi’s.

            The bakery was going to waste, and Shion didn’t want that, did not want this last part of his mother to die.

            He typed on his phone, hidden from his colleagues by a stack of portfolios.

            _I need to sell the bakery._

            Nezumi texted back half a minute later.

            _When?_

            Shion was glad Nezumi hadn’t tried to argue, though Shion was fully aware this bakery meant almost as much to Nezumi – it was somewhere he could call home, for a period of time, and Shion knew this well.

            _Now,_ he texted. And then, _After my meeting._

            _I’ll meet you there,_ he read, opening Nezumi’s following text.

            Shion looked away from his phone. He thought of his mother every day. Sometimes, in the shower, the pain of losing her would hit him like he’d only just lost her, and he would crouch down, gasping in the steam of the hot water.

            But he was learning to put the pain aside more easily, for most parts of most days. His reality without his mother was becoming more familiar to him than his reality with her, and as scared as he had been at the thought of living in such a reality, he knew now it was possible.

            After his meeting, Shion went straight to the bakery and found Nezumi leaning against the outside of it, even though he had a copy of the key, could easily have gone in.

            Nezumi looked up, watched Shion walk towards him, and Shion watched him back.

            Nezumi wore black jeans and a blue sweater with the sleeves pushed up. It was hot now, the thick of summer, and Shion didn’t know how the man wasn’t sweating.

            His hair was braided to the side, with smaller braids running through it, and Shion knew he had come from rehearsal as there was still a flower tucked into one of the braids, yellow and so small it could have been a bit of fluff.

            “How are you?” Nezumi asked, and the question was so strange it caught Shion off guard, made him stop walking and blink, for the first time consider the words and what they meant.

            “I think I’m okay,” he replied, hesitantly, and Nezumi nodded.

            “Good. Let’s get started then, there’s a lot to do.”

            Shion nodded back, though he didn’t know what he had to do at all. He had not thought of what selling the bakery entailed, of the process of actually selling it. He had only thought about the aftermath, how it would no longer be his.

            How it would be filled with people again, and the smell of sweet flour, like his mother.

            He followed Nezumi into the bakery, and realized maybe he was better than okay.

            Maybe he was a little bit happy.

*

Shion didn’t mean to move into Nezumi’s place.

            But it was easier to shower there, and he didn’t have any desire to eat his meals alone.

            His clothes slowly accumulated in Nezumi’s drawers without a discussion about it, and one day Shion realized it had been three weeks since he’d even stepped foot into his own apartment at all.

            “You could stop leasing it,” Nezumi said, when Shion pointed out this observation with mild surprise in the middle of pouring himself coffee in Nezumi’s kitchen.

            They were in the throes of selling the bakery, had a few possible buyers after having it on the market for only a month, but they were slow to make their decisions, careful.

            “My apartment?” Shion asked, confused for a moment, putting down the coffee pot.

            “Seeing as that is what we’re talking about, yes,” Nezumi replied, looking up from his newspaper then, eyebrows hidden in the sweep of his bangs.

            He lifted a hand, shoved his bangs from his forehead, and Shion watched them trickle back down.

            “To live here,” Shion said, carefully.

            “Did you have somewhere else in mind?” Nezumi asked, putting down his newspaper now and sitting with his elbows on the table, leaning forward.

            Shion thought about it. He supposed this meant he and Nezumi were in a relationship, though he hadn’t defined it as such before. He hadn’t thought anything of it. They’d just been moving on, coping, getting better, healing, surviving.

            “Would I pay half of your rent?” Shion asked, considering, leaning against the kitchen counter behind him.

            “Why of course not, Your Majesty, I’d be thrilled to house your freeloading ass,” Nezumi said, raising an eyebrow, and Shion crossed his arms, knowing his question was perhaps dumb, but it wasn’t as though he’d already thought any of this through.

            “I was just asking.”

            “And I was just answering,” Nezumi replied, lips twitching in a way that was vaguely familiar, something like the beginnings of a smile, Shion thought.

            “Do you want me to live here?” he asked, because that mattered now.

            What Nezumi wanted mattered, was no longer something Shion didn’t care about, didn’t think about.

            “Are you asking me to beg for your presence, Your Majesty?” Nezumi asked, and Shion looked at him in wonder.

            It had been so long, since he’d seen Nezumi this carefree. Since he’d seen Nezumi joke, since he’d heard the sarcasm that used to be constant.

            Shion wanted to join in. To keep up with this banter he used to know, but he wasn’t quite sure how, he didn’t remember yet, he needed more time.

            “If it’s okay with you, then, I guess I’ll talk to my landlord,” Shion said, and Nezumi smirked then, such an easy quirk of his lips, and Shion found himself jealous of the man for slipping into his old self so easily when Shion was still searching for who he used to be.

            “Don’t sound too eager,” Nezumi quipped, and Shion took a sip of his coffee, peeking over the edge of it to watch Nezumi’s smirk slip into a smile as the man looked back down at his newspaper.

            He was making Nezumi happy, Shion realized, and the thought was so startling that when his coffee burned his tongue, he didn’t even notice.

*

On the year anniversary of Karan’s death, the bakery was reopened by its new owners.

            All of Karan’s old customers flooded in, and free pastries were given out.

            Nezumi had helped the new owners – a young couple who had been eager to start their own business – with some of Karan’s recipes, and they made some of their own.

            The entire day was so busy with preparations and speaking to old customers whom Shion was greeted by like family that Shion was too distracted to think about his mother’s death until late that night, after closing and cleaning up and hugs from the new couple who were kind and excited and didn’t mind using Karan’s old recipes along with their own, agreed enthusiastically at the idea and said it was only right.

            They also permitted Nezumi and Shion to keep their keys to the bakery, though both had insisted on giving them back.

            Still, the couple had refused to take the keys, and though Shion knew he would never use his again, he kept it in his pocket, liked to touch it sometimes, remind himself that it was there, that this part of his mother was still with him.

            That night, Shion and Nezumi walked home from the bakery in silence, got to the apartment they had been sharing for a few months by then, and went directly to bed.

            Shion did not hesitate to kiss the man. He found that when they kissed, it was easiest to forget, to stop thinking about anything else, and Shion did not want to think.

            He wanted to feel, and Nezumi let him, smelled of sweet flour that was so familiar, tasted of cherries and sugar.

            Shion did not want to make love. He wanted to fuck, and so they did that, but afterward Nezumi still touched him, fingers that lingered in slow sketches over the insides of his thighs and the borders of his torso.

            Shion lay on his back, sweaty and wrung out like a towel, loose and limp and breathing hard. He felt nothing but the cool of Nezumi’s fingers trailing over him in invisible threads, and then there was the heat of Nezumi’s lips, on his knees and the sides of his calves and the creases of his pelvis and the line trailing up to his navel and the muted bars of his rib cage.

            Shion sighed, exhaled every bit of air from his lungs until he was completely empty, completely hollow, made room for this feeling of Nezumi’s heat slipping down into his skin like serum from a syringe, like drugs, and weren’t they addicting, Shion heard himself moan a soft sound without meaning to when Nezumi’s lips tickled the underside of his chin.

            “Shion,” Nezumi said, and his voice was slipped right into Shion’s ear without a moment in the open air.

            Shion felt teeth jostling the cartilage of his ear, felt the hot, stickiness of pure breath, curled his toes at the need for more of it, clenched his eyes tight.

            He wanted to reach out, to touch Nezumi, to wrap his fingers tight in Nezumi’s hair because he was certain he was sinking completely into the bed entirely, dissolving into nothingness, but Shion couldn’t move, let Nezumi move for him, lips onto his forehead now at the very edge of his hairline, then over Shion’s closed eyelids, then at the very corner of Shion’s lips, enough so that Shion opened them, but then Nezumi’s mouth was gone, had dipped down again, and Shion inhaled hard, hoping to draw Nezumi back.

            He opened his eyes and he stared at the ceiling and he thought about his mother even though Nezumi’s lips were on his shoulders now, and he felt his throat thicken and the burn start slow at the back of his nose and the prickling start up in his eyes.

            He no longer felt sadness as a constant state. He no longer craved numbness, he no longer knew indifference.

             He was happy and he thought he might be in love, and his mother would have wanted this, and Shion wished he could tell her how beautiful this man was who kissed him as if he was so, so fragile, like a dandelion he was not quite ready to make a wish on, not quite ready to blow away.

            When Nezumi returned to his lips, he kissed them only briefly before catching the streaks of heat that were slipping from the very corners of Shion’s eyes.

            “What do you want me to do, Shion?” Nezumi asked, and Shion looked at him, at the wetness of his own tears on Nezumi’s lips.

            Shion knew he could say anything, and Nezumi would do it. He would have been amazed that a man could love him so much, but Shion was not unfamiliar with this type of love.

            He had felt it before, watching Nezumi in the library, slipping books onto shelves with long fingers and midnight hair that cut across pale skin.

            He had known the fullness of this kind of love, the way it spilled over into desperation and happiness all at once until one feeling equated the other, and both were incredible.

            Shion didn’t know if he could feel this fullness again. He didn’t know if it was something fleeting, too good to come back once it had left.

            But Nezumi had come back after he had left, and so Shion didn’t feel so hopeless, waiting to feel the way he used to.

            He had learned that just because something left didn’t mean it had to be gone forever.

            That things forgotten could be remembered.

            Shion watched Nezumi’s eyes drift back and forth between his own.

            He didn’t know how to reply to Nezumi’s question, and so he finally settled on truthfully.

            “Can you kiss me again?” he asked, hardly voice, almost all breath, and Nezumi’s lips flickered up, barely noticeable.

            “Okay, Your Majesty,” he said, and his lips were already touching Shion’s, moved against them like these weren’t words at all but shapes and sounds that didn’t mean anything.

            Shion had always thought of drowning as an ache in his chest, as a restlessness, as unrelenting.

            But to be kissed was also a sort of drowning, a breathlessness, a weakening of his limbs.

            Or maybe it wasn’t the kiss at all, that Shion felt thronging his lungs with cotton and smoke.

            Maybe it was just the breath from Nezumi’s lungs, slipped into Shion’s like an antidote for this feeling of drowning, and Shion vowed it keep it, to hold it in his chest for safekeeping until Nezumi was the one struggling for air, and would need it back.

*

Shion slowly began to mend his friendship with Safu, starting with an apology, ending with Safu laughing in his and Nezumi’s kitchen when Shion spilled more than half of the champagne bottle on his own wrist after popping the cork.

            Nezumi had been reviewed by the biggest theater critic and received glowing praise, was being sought after by agents and managers of theaters around the country, and they were celebrating.

            Shion had laughed more tonight than he had for a while, but that was not to say his laughter was still hard to come by.

            He was starting to laugh easily, now. Liked the feeling of sound bubbling in his throat, liked the way it tickled the roof of his mouth on the way out.

            He had stopped thinking so much about whether or not he was happy. He was happy sometimes, and he was sad sometimes, and maybe it didn’t need to be one feeling all the time. Maybe it was okay to have many, sometimes all at once.

            After Safu left, it was late but Shion wasn’t tired, and when Nezumi took his hand he didn’t protest, let the man lead him in a sloppy dance around their kitchen. They had drunk a glass or two too much to be coordinated, bumped into the counter and kitchen table and each other, laughed at each other and stepped on each other’s socked feet.

            There was music playing, but Shion had forgotten to listen to it, was stepping to another beat completely, and Nezumi didn’t seem to mind. They danced until they were no longer in the kitchen, found themselves in the small sitting area, and Shion tripped, fell backwards onto the couch, pulled Nezumi with him.

            They sat and breathed and laughed in small exhales until their breath was caught, and Shion looked up at Nezumi, thought not for the first time how beautiful this man was, he was so so so beautiful it was incredible.

            “You’re incredible, did you know that?” he asked, and when Nezumi smiled it was such pure happiness that Shion blinked, unable to stare too long at the brightness of it.

            “I like you a lot, Shion,” Nezumi said back, words light and sing-songy, and Shion knew this already.

            Knew Nezumi liked him more than a lot.

            “I know,” he said, and Nezumi leaned forward, fell a bit onto Shion’s lap, curled his body so that he was on his side and his cheek rested on Shion’s thigh.

            Shion wove his fingers into Nezumi’s hair, liking the feel of it, the silky softness.

            “I like you a lot, Shion,” Nezumi murmured, and Shion looked down at him, saw that Nezumi had closed his eyes.

            Shion didn’t reply this time. He didn’t know if Nezumi would repeat himself again, and didn’t want his own words to interrupt the man’s if he did.

            Shion liked the sound of these syllables in Nezumi’s voice. Wouldn’t have minded hearing them a third time, and maybe a fourth, and maybe another time after that.

            He considered, briefly, saying the words back. Saying more than the words, even, saying the truth he knew Nezumi felt, the truth that it was more than just liking a lot.

            But those words had never meant much, to Shion and Nezumi.

            And so Shion told Nezumi that he was in love with him too by tucking the man’s hair behind his ear, by not moving as Nezumi fell asleep, by slipping his hand under Nezumi’s palm lying on his knee and intertwining their fingers, squeezing only slightly in hopes that Nezumi might feel the pressure in his unconsciousness, remember that he was not alone in no matter what nightmare he might have fallen into.

*

It was sunny, and so Nezumi and Shion took their books and read in the park, sat on a bench with the sun warm on their skin.

            After about an hour or so, Shion found himself rereading the same page over and over, and he closed his book. He looked at Nezumi, who had the sun caught between locks of his hair.

            “I know you’re looking at me,” Nezumi said, not turning, and his lips were turned up just a bit.

            Shion smiled back. “No,” he said, and Nezumi laughed.

            “You are an awful liar, Your Majesty.”

            “That should be a good thing,” Shion replied, and then Nezumi was looking at him, the grey of his eyes bright, bright, bright.

            “Sometimes,” he said, and Shion thought about the truths he had given this man in all the years he had known him.

            It had been almost four years since Nezumi had come back, but it felt a little longer than forever. Shion hadn’t known a person could change so much as he had, as Nezumi had.

            “How about right now?” Shion asked, and Nezumi tucked his sun-stained hair behind an ear.

            “Lie to me, and then I’ll decide,” Nezumi replied, and Shion sat up, tried to think of something to lie about to this man.

            “Okay, I’ve got one.”

            “No need to keep me in suspense.”

            Shion pivoted on the bench so he was facing Nezumi fully, reached out and took Nezumi’s hands in his, leaned forward.

            Nezumi raised his eyebrows, though he looked the smallest bit wary, and this almost made Shion laugh, but he kept a straight face.

            “Nezumi, you are absolutely awful in bed,” Shion said, voice heavy, and Nezumi stared at him for a second before laughing, the hands that Shion held shaking with Nezumi’s shoulders.

            “Okay, yes,” Nezumi said, when he’d calmed himself down somewhat. “It is a good thing you’re such a bad liar, or I might have been very concerned about your judgment.”

            “ _My_ judgment? Shouldn’t you have been concerned about _your_ performance in bed?” Shion demanded, taking his hands back to cross his arms over his chest, and Nezumi laughed again.

            Shion was no longer shocked to hear Nezumi’s laughter. Was no longer amazed that he could make this man happy again.

            Of course he could, of course he could.

            “Don’t be ridiculous.”

            Shion just shook his head, well-accustomed to Nezumi’s cockiness. He turned back away from the man and opened his book where he’d left off.

            “Hey,” Nezumi said, and Shion glanced over at him, saw that the man was closer than he had been a moment before.

            “What?”

            “You lied to me, so now I get to lie to you,” Nezumi said, as if there was any logic to it, and Shion figured it was easiest to agree.

            “Go on,” he said, looking back at his book, certain Nezumi would make another joke.

            He felt Nezumi’s breath in his ear a moment before the words fell against his skin.

            “I wish I’d never met you,” Nezumi whispered, and Shion felt a cool rush through his body at the words, at what they could have meant.

            But they were spoken as a lie, and Shion’s skin heated up a beat after it had chilled. His fingers tightened around the sides of his book.

            “Me too,” he managed, but this in itself was a lie as well, didn’t say nearly as much as the words Shion felt in the pulse rushing under his skin.

            He was not only so incredibly happy to have met Nezumi. That hardly covered the extent of how Shion felt about knowing this man.

            It was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and Shion tried to speak these words now, but they wouldn’t come out because his throat had constricted.

            He was terrified, he realized, that at this moment he felt the kind of happiness that was too incredible to last, that could only be fleeting. But on feeling Nezumi’s lips quick against the soft skin beneath his ear, Shion relaxed almost instantaneously.

            The moment – this happiness – might not last.

            But after it left, it would come back. And Shion would wait.

 

THE END


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